


Yugi, Harry and the Chamber of Secrets

by JoeyTaylor



Series: Clanverse [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Ombre, clanverse, kari ironhide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 05:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeyTaylor/pseuds/JoeyTaylor
Summary: Why don't Shadow Magic and Wand Magic mix well? Let's count the ways, one dragon, two dragon, three dragon...





	1. The Tournament

' _Yami!'_

" _Huh?"_

' _You're doing it again!'_

Yugi sighed and stared at his dark half, trying to keep his mind off of Yami's opposition for the quarter final match, something Yami didn't seem to be able to do, she was a silver haired beauty who seemed to be able to catch the attention of every male in the building, even a five thousand year old one. Yugi was pretty sure the girl wasn't all she seemed to be, while Kari was convinced the duellist was something called a veela, a magical creature that could charm any man that she'd read about in one of the books she'd gotten from Florish and Boltts last school year, and unfortunately it was effecting Yami's duelling and with only 500 points left he could not afford to make any mistakes.

"I play this card in defence mode and two cards face down and end my turn." The silver haired veela, Veena, called. Yami nodded and drew. He looked at his hand and then at the field, and summoned a monster in attack mode, he had no face down cards but attacked anyway. "I activate Ring of Destruction and Barrel behind the Door!" Veena called destroying Yami's monster, and reversing the damage done to her lifepoints back at Yami, dealing him both the 1600 meant for him and the 1600 meant for her, 3200 lifepoints damage directly. The duel was over, Yami had lost.

Kaiba was gob smacked. Yami, the Yami, had lost to this before now unheard of duellist. It didn't matter now, he was just mad he wouldn't get the chance to duel against and defeat Yami. At least he had the chance to duel against Yugi, who was equal in duelling skill to his yami, and it was Yugi who held the 'King of Games' title, not Yami.

The two duellists left the duelling platform, and a stunned Yami wished Ombre good luck. The female yami smiled at her hikari, who smiled and grabbed the Millennium Orb and wished Ombre luck. The whole group were watching these duels, they had been since they'd all either been knocked out or where waiting for their duel, Yugi, Yami, Joey, Kari, Ombre had been watching but she was about to dueland Rebecca, who'd been knocked out of the competition in the last round. Kaiba and Mokuba were around somewhere, they'd been watching Yami's duel so they were probably close.

Ombre smiled once more then turned and scowled at her opposition, as she climbed the steps to her duelling platform. Kari held her breath, made a decision and took off the Millennium Orb.

Ombre stopped and turned abruptly at the sudden loss of the link and caught the thrown Millennium Item, nodding to Kari, who smiled grimly and bit her lip. This would not be a fun duel, yami 'vs' yami, Ombre 'vs' Bakura.

Ombre shuffled her deck, and put onto her duelling field. Bakura did the same. "Ombre Ironhide to make the first move, ready?"

"Duel!" Bakura and Ombre said at the same time, as they drew their first hands. Ombre drew her first card of the game. This deck was completely different to the one she used to use when she duelled for Kari, not that she often had too, the Spellcaster Deck belonged to her hikari, and was the one Kari was using. "I play a card in defence mode and two cards face down. It's your move Bakura!"

Bakura drew and grimaced, his opening hand wasn't brilliant and he didn't know Ombre's deck like he knew Kari's. He'd seen the girl duel with it often enough. "I play the Portrait's Secret in attack mode and attack your face down card."

"You've tripped my trap, Shadow Spell." Chains sprang out and wrapped around Bakura's monster, lowering its attack points by 700. Ombre grinned and Bakura growled, "Your move."

The duel continued, Bakura's temper was growing as the duel continued, Ombre seemed to counter every move he threw at her. As his life points hit 1000, he glared at his opposition, how had she gotten her hands on a Red Eyes Black Dragon? He played a card face down and passed the turn to her. That Red Eyes combo was killing him, she'd even used cards he'd never seen before, Red Eyes Black Chick for one, allowing her to sacrifice it to summon Red Eyes Black Dragon in her second turn. "I want to show you my best monster, I sacrifice Red Eyes Black Dragon for my Red Eyes Darkness Dragon," A huge black hole opened and Red Eyes disappeared but an even larger dragon emerged, pitch black with red markings, whose attack points rose steadily, stopping at 3900. "It gains attack points for every Dragon monster in my graveyard and I have 5. Now! Red Eyes Darkness Dragon, destroy his monster!" Bakura lost his temper as his life points dropped again.

Yugi's eyes widened as he suddenly sensed magic radiating off of Bakura and a huge wave of purple and silver magic rushed from Bakura's platform and washed over everyone in the stadium. Everyone screwed up their eyes in an attempt to block out the glow. When Yugi opened his eyes he had a double take… "Uh Yami…" He said, watching the fuzzball jumping up and down in front of him.

"Yes, Yugi?" Yami asked, aware of the fuzzball, that was in fact a real live Kuriboh, but was preoccupied by the Dark Magician who was bowing to him.

"What just happened?" Yugi asked, looking around at his friends, there were other live monsters around the arena. Kuriboh was now sat on his lap while Dark Magician was bowing to Yami.

There was a 5 foot long Red Eyes Black Dragon stood in front of Joey, but looking upwards at growling at a larger dragon, a Blue Eyes White Dragon who was flying around a very confused Seto Kaiba, while a dragon Yugi didn't recognise, it looked like a baby version of Blue Eyes, a Blue Eyes White Chick perhaps, was stood by Mokuba.

Kari was staring at a Dark Magician Girl who was smiling at her, while Rebecca was watching an Emerald Dragon flying around her head. Bakura was still scowling at Ombre, a Dark Necrofear stood behind him, while a Red Eyes Darkness Dragon, which was larger then Joey's regular Red Eyes Black Dragon, landed on the edge of Ombre's duelling platform, growling at her holographic one.

"I think…" Kari said, then looked around to check no one who shouldn't hear could hear what she was about to stay, "That we just had another dose of Shadow Magic and normal Magic merged, I think it's Bakura's fault because he lost his temper, and it's given everyone with magic their own real life monster."

Yami nodded and turned to Rebecca as Ombre and Bakura continued their duel, trying to ignore the wierdness, "Did you get an odd letter about three days ago? With an odd emblem on the back?"

"Yes, there was a letter inside from a place called Hogwarts. I thought it was a joke and left it on the table."

The gang had received their Hogwarts letters three days ago, Mokuba had received one at the same time as his older brother. Kari wondered who Gilderoy Lockheart was and why almost the entire booklist consisted of his books; obviously the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher liked his work. "It's not a joke Rebecca, we'll explain it after the Tournament." Yugi said, his hand on the Kuriboh that was now sat on his lap, and his attention turned to the duel, Bakura had turned it around, Ombre was now the one in trouble as a Dark Necrofear came to Bakura's field, special summoned by Bakura by removing three fiends from his graveyard. Their life points equal at 1000 a piece.

She didn't dare attack with her Darkness Dragon, if she destroyed the monster it would allow Bakura to control one of her monsters and she knew which one he'd pick. She passed without making a move and Bakura smirked, "Wrong move." He said, playing a card, "I activate Raigeki!" Ombre blanched as her holographic dragon was destroyed, her real one roared at Bakura who continued to grin. "I then activate Heavy Storm to destroy your face down cards." He laughed, "I win, Dark Necrofear attack her life points directly!"

Ombre's life points hit zero and she got down from her platform. Her dragon flew down with her and Bakura walked over smirking, his monster scaring the younger duellists, "I'm claiming my prize now, hand over your Millennium Orb." Yami growled and got to his feet, Kari moved to Ombre's side, her Dark Magician Girl following. "You can't stop me, I can claim the Millennium Item as a prize for my victory." Kari growled and went to move forward but her Dark Magician Girl stopped her, the female monster shook her head, Kari growled as Ombre took off the Millennium Orb and handed it to Bakura, who smirked and turned and left, his Dark Necrofear trailing after him.

"How can he take it? It has to be near you." Kari growled.

"It's not mine anymore." Ombre said, her voice growing weaker, and she slumped over as Bakura had turned and sent a beam of Shadow Magic at the yami, the magic hitting her just before she slumped over. "Bakura!" Kari growled loudly, "What did you do?"

"I sent her soul to the Shadow Realm." Bakura answered and then vanished into the crowds. The gang rushed over, Joey offered Kari his help as she tried to carry Ombre over to the seats.

"I'm gunna beat him. I can get her back if I beat him." Kari growled out loud. Yugi nodded as Kaiba's doctors took Ombre to the hospital ward, her Dragon following.

"I'll go with her," Rebecca said, "Don't worry Kari, I'll take care of her until one of you guys beat him, you just focus on duelling." Kari was unhappy about it but let Rebecca and her Dragon go with Ombre. Dark Magician Girl put her hand on her Mistress's shoulder Kaiba and Mokuba came over, Blue Eyes White Dragon and Blue Eyes White Chick following.

"She alright?" Mokuba asked, concerned.

"Nothing that won't be cured once we beat Bakura." Yami said, well aware Kaiba was staring at him, "And yes I am aware I'm out of the competition, Kaiba."

"I take it that wave of magic is what caused our monsters to come to life." Kaiba said, looking at the monsters surrounding the group, "Another Bakura screw up."

"Yes." Joey said, ticked off at Bakura. Kaiba nodded, making notes of who in the crowd had monsters.

"Have you noticed not everyone has a monster, and your muggle friends don't either." The two had followed Rebecca out. "I think it's only people who have magic that were effected, though I doubt most of these people know it." Yami nodded, he'd been thinking along the same lines as Kaiba, who turned to Yugi. "Yugi, it's time for our duel." Kaiba said, "You can be sure that Ombre will be safe in my hospital section, now are you ready?" The Blue Eyes roared challengingly and Kuriboh squeaked at it.

Yugi nodded, his face going stern, "I'm ready."

"The sooner the quarter finals finish the sooner we find out who faces Bakura." Yami whispered to Kari who nodded unhappily. "Besides I really want to see Yugi beat Kaiba." Kari laughed bitterly as Yugi, Kuriboh, Kaiba and Blue Eyes went to their places.

Kuriboh perched on the edge of Yugi's duelling platform as the duel started; Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon hovered in midair above her master.

Kaiba smirked as they drew their first hands, he didn't think it was possible for him to lose this. Yugi had never duelled on his own against him, he'd always had the backup of the Pharaoh, someone Kaiba had denied existing until he'd met him face to face last year in Hogwarts, then he hadn't been able to deny he existed anymore because of the proof.

"Yugi Muto, to make first move. Ready?"

"Duel!" Yugi and Kaiba yelled. Yugi drew his first card and looked at his hand. "I play Queen's Knight in attack mode and play a card face down. Your move Kaiba."

Kaiba drew, he'd never had such a good opening hand. "I play Lord of D. in attack mode and a Flute of Summoning Dragon, allowing me to summon Blue Eyes White Drag…"

"I activate Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy your flute." Yugi countered before Kaiba could summon his dragons.

"I end my turn!" Kaiba growled.

"Then it's my move. I play King's Knight in attack mode and since King's Knight and Queen's Knight are on the field I can summon my Jack's Knight!" Yugi called, summoning both monsters to his side of the field, "Jack's Knight attack Lord of D." Kaiba's life points dropped by 700, and Yugi ended his turn.

Kaiba was scowling, he'd expected to have the upper hand, he drew, "La Jinn, in attack mode and one card face down, your move."

Yugi drew, smiling as he felt a jolt of electrical energy surge up his arm, a feeling he recognised, he looked at the card, smiled and Kaiba blanched, he was surprised how much alike Yugi and Yami where when it came to duelling, right down to look they got when they drew a God card, that had to be what it was, Yugi wouldn't be looking so confident otherwise. "I sacrifice King's Knight, Queen's Knight and Jack's Knight, for Slipher, the Sky Dragon!" Yami and Yugi had talked it over and Yugi had kept the Egyptian Gods with him. Now he had three cards in his hand and Slipher had 3000 attack points. Kaiba blanched. "Slipher, attack La Jinn!"

Kaiba's points dropped to 2200 and he scowled. His Blue Eyes White Dragon roared at the holographic Egyptian God monster, and was annoyed when it didn't respond. "Your move."

Kaiba growled and drew his next card; he was holding all three Blue Eyes White Dragons but he had no way of getting any of them out. "One card in defence mode, and a card face down. Your move Yugi."

Yugi smiled and drew, he knew Kaiba wasn't happy, Kuriboh, on the other hand was bouncing up and down and nearly fell off the platform. Yugi had to grab it suddenly as it nearly tumbled off the side. Yugi looked at his hand, "I summon Obnoxious Celtic Guardian." Kaiba growled, "Obnoxious Celtic Guardian attacks your face down card!" Cyber Jar appeared on the field, destroying Kaiser Seahorse when to the graveyard. "And Slipher attacks your life points directly."

Kaiba growled as his life points hit zero, his face down card was useless against Egyptian Gods, he hadn't beaten Yugi, it was the other way around, and in only a few turns. Kaiba's Dragon swooped down and roared in Yugi's face, who stared at it as it flew off. Yugi had to assume that Kaiba was in a foul mood from his Dragon's reaction to the loss.

Yugi picked up his deck and was followed down off the platform by his Kuriboh and as engulfed by his friend's, who cheered and he was nearly knocked off his feet by Joey patting him on the back. Yami was grinning from ear to ear, a feeling Yugi could agree with. "Will Mr Joey Wheeler and Miss Kari Ironhide please report to the Duelling Arena."

Joey and Kari looked up and stared at each other, Red Eyes Black Dragon and Dark Magician Girl looked at each other, Red Eyes growled slightly and took off. Joey and Kari stood on the opposite stands and shuffled and placed their decks. "Kari Ironhide to make first move, ready?"

Joey smiled at her, and she nodded, "Duel!"

"I play one card in defence mode and a card face down. Your move, Joey!"

Joey nodded as his dragon landed on his platform; Dark Magician Girl was stood behind Kari. He drew and grimaced, why did this always happen to him? Every time he got far in a tournament, other than Duellist Kingdom, his opening hand stunk when he was playing someone he'd either never played before or never beaten before. "I play two cards face down and end my turn." He said.

Kari watched his face, he'd obviously had a bad opening hand, she drew and smiled, Joey blanched, she couldn't already have drawn…"I sacrifice my Gale Lizard for the Dark Magician Girl in attack mode! Dark Magician Girl attack!" The holographic DMG attacked but Joey activated a card, Scapegoat, Kari's Dark Magician Girl destroyed one of those instead. "I active Magician's Circle, because my Dark Magician Girl, a Spellcaster, attacked you, I can summon another Spellcaster with 2000 or less attack points from my deck so I summon a second Dark Magician Girl! It's your move."

Joey drew and his dragon roared, he could destroy one Spellcaster but not both. "I summon my Panther Warrior, and offer up one Scapegoat to allow it too attack." Both Panther Warrior and one of the Dark Magician Girls were destroyed. Joey ended his turn.

Kari drew, "I activate Monster Reborn and bring back my Dark Magician Girl, I play Sage's Stone and summon Dark Magician from my deck to my field. Dark Magician Girls attack your two Scapegoats, and Dark Magician attack your life points directly."

"She's not playing nice." Yugi murmured as Joey's life points dropped to 1500.

"Would you in her situation?" Yami countered, Yugi shook his head.

"It's your move Joey!"

Joey drew and growled, Goblin Attack Force, a good card, "I summon Goblin Attack Force, and attack your Dark Magician Girl." The same DMG was destroyed and Kari growled, while her monster poked her tongue out at Joey, frowning. Goblin Attack Force switched to defence mode, and Joey ended his turn, at least he'd done some damage to her life points.

Kaiba smirked, looked like the mutt was going out this round too. How an idiot like that expected to beat someone like Ironhide was beyond him but it most defiantly cheered him up to see Wheeler crushed so badly as Kari issued her attack orders to her monsters, "Dark Magician attack Goblin Attack Force! Dark Magician Girl finish the duel, attack him directly!" Joey's life points hit zero and Kaiba's smirk widened.

Joey saw Kaiba's smirk as he and his Dragon got down from the platform and he scowled at the CEO, who smirked back at him and got his goons to set up the system to choose the duellists and their opposition for the semi finals. Dark Magician Girl followed her mistress down and Kari shook hands with Joey, who smiled, then the pictures of the semi finalists came up as holograms and Kari and Yugi looked at each other and then at the platform where the machine was randomly sorting them for their semi final matches.

Finally the computer chose, and Kari's heart jumped up to her throat, while Yami growled, the first of the two matches, had put Yugi against…Bakura. Kuriboh squeaked and bounced once, Yugi nodded and turned to Kari as the computer put her up against the veela, Veena. "I'll beat him, Kari, don't worry. I'll get her back for you."

"Thanks Yugi, just be careful." Yugi nodded and walked over to the Duelling Platform, Bakura was waiting for him.

"If you lose this, I'm taking the Puzzle, the Gods and your soul." Bakura stated, smirking at the hikari, his Dark Necrofear freaking Yugi out slightly.

"I win this; you're freeing Ombre's soul and handing the Orb over to me." Yugi stated back, his hand on his Puzzle, Kuriboh glaring at Bakura who continued to smirk and nodded. Then they split up and took their places, their monsters staying where they wouldn't disturb the duel.

' _What was that about?'_ Yami asked, concerned.

" _Nothing, just the terms of the duel."_ Yugi replied, not wanting to worry Yami.

' _Yugi…'_ Yami said uncertainly, _'Good luck!'_ Yugi smiled at him and then turned to focus on the duel.

"Mr Bakura Malfoy to make first move. Ready?" Yugi shuddered, he'd heard rumours from Ron that the Malfoy family had adopted a pure blood wizard who'd been raised by a muggle family after the wizard's family had been killed, but he'd never thought Malfoy would take Bakura into his own home. Yugi had to assume that Bakura had told the Malfoy family about them by now, and about the amulets and the Millennium Items.

"Duel!" Bakura looked at his first hand, he had a concern he didn't have in his duel against Ombre, Yugi had the Egyptian Gods, but he was certain he could win this, after all, Yugi was on his own now, he didn't have Yami to back him up and give him tips and tricks.

"Two cards face down, and The Earl of Demise in attack mode, your move little Yugi."

Yugi wasn't stupid, he was well aware of the strategy Bakura had employed against them during Battle City and he wasn't going to fall for it, "I put three cards face down and a card in defence mode! Your move Bakura!"

Bakura scowled, he'd expected Yugi to walk straight into it. Instead he'd put cards face down, meaning Bakura would have to be the one to attack if Yugi wouldn't and he'd have to walk into Yugi's trap. He played a second fiend, Goblin King, and put another card face down. If Yugi wanted to attack his life points now, he'd have to destroy all the other fiends before he could get to his Goblin King, who's attack points rose to 1000. "Yugi! You can't destroy my Goblin King while there are fiends on my side of the field, and for every fiend on my side of the field Goblin King gets 1000 life points. Your move."

Yugi drew and thought about it. He had Obnoxious Celtic Guard in defence mode, if that Goblin King grew by another 1000 attack points it couldn't destroy the elf. Yugi placed another card face down and set another monster in defence mode. "In response to you setting a monster I activate Destiny Board, now you can't stall Yugi, you have until I have the other four letters. Then you lose." Yugi grimaced and summoned his Alpha the Magnet Warrior to the field.

"I end my turn."

Bakura smirked and flipped two of his face down cards up, I, and N of his Destiny Board. Yugi blanched but did his best to keep his game face on. "Earl Of Demise, attack Alpha the Magnet Warrior!"

"Mirror Force!" Yugi called, flipping one of his face down cards. Bakura's monsters were destroyed and Yugi smiled, this duel wasn't over yet.

"Your move Yugi."

Yugi drew and played Monster Reborn on Bakura's Earl of Demise. Bakura growled and Yugi looked at his cards, and smiled. "I play Obelisk, the Tormentor!" Yugi called, sacrificing all three monsters for his God monster. "Obelisk, attack him directly!" Bakura's face down cards were useless, and Bakura's points hit zero. Yugi smiled and the two of them got down from the platform.

"Bakura, remember our deal." Yugi said, staring at Bakura. He sighed and his Ring flashed, then he slowly pulled the Millennium Orb out of his pocket but only chucked it to Yugi after Yami, Joey and Kari joined their hikariand friend. He stormed off and Kari smiled and hugged Yugi, who blushed bright red. Rebecca rushed out of the tunnel and up to the Duelling Platform.

"Kari! She's awake!"

"Yeah, Yugi saved her for me, tell her I'm about to duel." Rebecca nodded and rushed off as Kari took her place at the arena.

' _Do I want to know what was on the line in that duel against Bakura?'_ Yami asked Yugi as the duel commenced, with Kari starting.

" _No."_ Yugi admitted to him. _"Probably not."_

' _You know Veena doesn't seem half as attractive now as she did in my duel against her.'_

" _Yami, Kari thinks she's a Veela, a magical creature who can…"_ Yugi trailed off as Veena got on her stand. Kari couldn't help but notice the fact that the moment the Veela was in place the men in the audience went silent. However, the charm she had to men didn't work against her, which meant she had no advantage over Kari and Kari wiped the floor with Veena in just a few turns. Ombre made it to the arena just in time to see Kari win. Kari and the Dark Magician Girl got down and her monster pointed out Ombre to her. Kari, smiled and hugged her yami and then went serious.

"Yugi!" She called, Yugi looked over, and smiled at her. "Are you ready?"

Yugi nodded and they took their places, Kari in the red tower, Yugi in the Blue. "This is the Final Match, both combatants have duelled hard and with great skill to get here. In the Blue tower, from your home town of Domino, the King of Games himself, Yugi Muto!" A huge cheer rose from the crowd, Yugi blushed.

"And in the Red Duelling tower, originally from England, previously Queen of Games, Kari Ironhide!" A second great cheer rose from the crowd and Kari grinned at Yugi. "Kari Ironhide to move first, are the Duellists ready?"

"Duel!" Yugi and Kari shouted at the same time and a loud roar from the crowd made Yugi smile.

The entire duel was tit for tat, and by the time both combatants were down to 500 life points a piece they were down to just 10 cards left in their decks. Kari looked at her field and then at her hand, Yugi had three Egyptian God monsters of his side of the field, and all she had was her Dark Magician Girl, who was never a waste of time but stood no chance against the three Gods of Egypt. Kari drew, focusing on the card she needed, she only had one direct assault card in her deck, Meteor of Destruction, and she needed to draw it now if she was going to win. She closed her eyes and drew. She opened one of her eyes and smiled, she'd done it, her deck had come through again.

"Yugi! This has been an awesome duel, but it's all over! I play Meteor of Destruction!" Yugi gasped as a meteor formed in the sky and fired right at him, colliding with the tower, causing his life points to drop to zero. They got down and Kari was presented with the prize money and a trophy, then when she returned to the group she was rewarded by Yugi handing her back her Millennium Orb.

They all walked out as a group to make sure Yugi and Kari didn't have to see the press too much,thier monsters following,and though Tristan and Tea had to go home the rest of them settled down to have a meal, care of Kaiba Corp.

Joey turned to Rebecca, "Now," He said, "You said you got a Hogwarts letter right?"


	2. Monster Trouble and Flourish and Blotts

**SMASH**

Yugi wheeled around as something fell off the surface and hit the floor, smashing into about a zillion little pieces. It was only three days until they left Japan to return to Diagon Alley to get their equipment for their second year at Hogwarts and their Duel Monsters were still causing trouble. Kuriboh for one was always floating or bouncing around and this time it had landed on one of the plates Yugi was supposed to be washing and knocked it off the side.

Yami's Dark Magician poked his head round the door as Yami called. "Yugi? Are you alright?" Yugi nodded to the Dark Magician who retreated out the door as Yugi replied.

"Yes Yami. Kuriboh just broke a plate." Kuriboh squeaked apologetically and Yugi sighed as Yami walked into the kitchen, having been told by his monster that Yugi was in the kitchen.

"Another one? That's how many?"

"Eight." Yugi said as he knelt down and started to sweep up the china. "But at least we know where Kuriboh is…"

"True." Yami agreed, Joey and Kaiba were having trouble. While Yugi's Kuriboh, Yami's Dark Magician, Kari's Dark Magician Girl, Ombre's Red Eyes Darkness Dragon and Mokuba's Blue Eyes White Chick all stayed close to their owners, Joey's Red Eyes Black Dragon and Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon kept vanishing from their owner's sides and when the two dragons were found they were more often then not together.

The fact worried Kaiba slightly, he had this weird feeling that Blue Eyes was a female while Joey had stressed that his dragon was a male. In fact that was the reason he was about to leave his office at this moment of time, his Dragon had flown out of the office window about two hours ago, at about midday, and it wasn't a good idea to let a dragon fly around Domino without keeping an eye on it.

There was no way he was going to entrust the care of his dragon to one of his lackeys, Blue Eyes was his dragon, his prized and most trusted dragon. Kaiba sighed and buzzed his secretary, "I'm going out. Rearrange all my afternoon appointments for tomorrow." He ordered as he shut down his computer.

Kaiba stood outside his building thinking. Where would his dragon be? He hated to use magic, even his own magic but if he wanted to find his dragon he would have t use that untrustworthy magical link between him and Blue Eyes. He turned to the attendant, "You!" He ordered, "Retrieve my motorcycle from the garage." The young man jumped to attention and ran off quickly to do as ordered. _This_ , Kaiba thought, _is going to be a long Monday._ He revved his engine and headed North, where he could sense his dragon, if he had to lock his Blue Eyes away to stop her from fraternising with the enemy he would.

Joey was racing down the road, his Red Eyes Black Dragon had flown off over an hour ago, he wasn't one hundred percent how long ago, he'd been preoccupied by the arcade games. How could he lose a dragon? Especially one as important to him as Red Eyes? Joey spotted Tristan heading into a shop, his motorbike left outside. Joey stopped and checked the bike, Tristan had left the keys in the ignition again, surely he wouldn't mind if Joey borrowed it, would he? Joey started the bike up and headed North-East, he was afraid to even think about where his dragon had ended up. Wherever it was, Red Eyes was enjoying himself.

Joey followed the link to his dragon and stopped outside the gate's of Kaiba's Mansion. "Oh no No NOOOOOO!" He shouted, "Not again!" He thumped his head against the steering bars. As Joey was playing Can-I-Knock-Myself-Out? Kaiba pulled up.

"Mutt!" He growled, "If you can't control that thing you call a dragon, you should keep it on a leash."

Joey jumped and fell off of Tristan's bike, "Kaiba! It's not like you're doing any better Rich-boy!"

The two boys stood glaring at each other for several minutes until they heard the Blue Eyes roar, with an answering roar from Red Eyes. "My dragon!" The two said in unison, running through the gateway which automatically opened when Kaiba approached.

Kaiba entered the Grand Hall with Joey close behind, stopping suddenly enough to make Joey to run into him. "Mutt!" He growled under his breath, but something else was occupying his attention, the strange link was making him feel feverish, hot and cold washing over him alternating. The dragons were wrapped together, and Blue Eyes seemed to be purring.

"Blue Eyes!" Kaiba shouted in the tone of voice that scared the living daylights out of him employees. Joey, attacking recklessly as always, decided to try to pull his dragon away. Maybe pulling on the tail wasn't the brightest idea. Kaiba simply spewed orders in every direction. The two dragons shared a look and nodded. Blue Eyes grabbed Kaiba, lifting him up, as Red Eyes did the same to Joey. "Put me down!" Kaiba ordered, but to no avail.

Blue Eyes flew up the stairs and towards the Safe room where Mokuba was supposed to hide if any enemies came calling. Red Eyes followed. Blue Eyes chucked Kaiba in and before the CEO could rise, Joey followed, landing on top of him. Blue Eyes snorted, to Kaiba it sounded like a laugh and a thought crossed the link, "Have fun!"

Blue Eyes closed the door and activated the locks. Now no one could leave unless one of the three people with the password unlocked it from the outside and Mokuba wasn't due home till tomorrow, while Roland, his head of security, was on holiday and their links were sending increasingly stronger emotions.

* * *

Rebecca looked around Diagon Alley, she'd arrived days ahead of Yugi's gang, with the intent of being ready to greet him when he arrived in England, her Emerald Dragon flew around her head as she walked with her Grandpa, Professor Hawkins. "I wonder if the school will let me keep the dragon?" She asked herself, she was receiving many strange and fearful looks from various people. She and her Grandpa sat down outside an ice cream parlour to watch, having gotten all her supplies. It was interesting to say the least. Then suddenly a shadow loomed over her as her dragon landed to eat part of her ice cream. "What're yer don' with that there dragon, misses?"

Rebecca looked up, she'd never seen anyone that tall before in her life. He was intimidating to say the least. "I… I…" She stuttered, for once startled, but not for long, "I received him/her over in Japan during the tournament." She told him sharply, "Why what business it is of yours?"

"Ah no need to be sharp. I was just wonderin' how yer'd tamed him so readily." He said, pure adoration on his face as the dragon took off again and circled. Then he shook himself, "Where's my manners gone? I'm Hagrid, keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts, and you and this little beauty would be?"

"My name is Rebecca Hawkins, and this is…" Rebecca was once again speechless for a moment, until replying, "I haven't thought what to name him yet. Wait Hagrid? Joey told me about you, you live in a house at the edge of the grounds!"

"Joey… Joey… Ahh, Joey Wheeler, helped me raise a drag… never mind… so how about you come up with a name for him, before someone tries to steal 'im from yer."

Rebecca thought for a moment, "Uhhh," _A name for an Emerald Dragon, Gemini? No that's a girl's name._ She thought, mentally running through names that could fit, "Minneloa." She said finally, smiling at Hagrid. "Do you think I'll be allowed to take him to Hogwarts with me?"

Hagrid thought for a few moments, "I'll talk to the Headmaster for you. I'm sure it'll be Ok."

"Ummm, Joey, Kaiba, his little brother Mokuba who'll be starting this year too, and Ombre all got dragons too and Bakura got a Dark Necrofear and Yugi got a Kuriboh, and Kari got a Dark Magician Girl and Yami got a Dark Magician, and they will probably all bring them to Hogwarts…" Rebecca trailed off at the look in Hagrid's eyes at the idea of five tame dragons being at Hogwarts.

* * *

On Wednesday morning the Japanese Hogwarts Students were glad of something called Floo Powder, because if Joey and Kaiba had been in a plane together for the entire trip, Yugi was pretty sure they would have killed each other. Instead the gang were taking bets on how long it would take Kaiba to lose his temper, Yami gave it the shortest time, having seen Kaiba pretending to wring someone's neck every time he looked at Joey. Mokuba had given his brother the longest time, though even that was only until the end of the day, and since they were in London for another two weeks before the train left for Hogwarts, that wasn't saying a lot.

Their monsters stayed in their rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, with Red Eyes and Blues Eyes locked in tightly, so here could be no repeat of Monday's events.

They exchanged money and Ryou got money out of his vault, Yugi's Grandpa had given Yugi the key to the family's vault at Gringotts, there wasn't much in the vault, but he'd said it was enough to get both Yugi and Yami something they really wanted, plus Yugi and Yami had earned some money between them over the summer, and they also had the prize money from previous tournaments that they hadn't spent yet. They'd have to work harder over the next summer to make sure they had enough for next year, unless they were careful with the money they had. Something Kaiba found highly amusing.

They were in for a nice surprise as they bumped into Harry, Ron and Hermione while they were at Gringotts, who wanted to know where they'd gotten the real live Duel Monsters and congratulate them on the results of the tournament, something that put Kaiba in an even worse mood. Joey had more money for this year, having worked over the entire summer at the Game Shop and finally managed to move out of his Dad's apartment, he owed Tristan a new motorcycle now though, after Tristan's had gotten stolen the night Joey was stuck in Kaiba's mansion, at least he wouldn't have to worry about it until he got back from his second year at Hogwarts.

He was just glad Kari had managed to get Mokuba's dragon to give back his amulet after it had stolen it when they'd been about to use the floo powder, it was interesting though, they all looked a year older then they had last year when they put them on. He wondered how that worked, what the spell's limitations were, from what he knew about magic it had to have limits but would it last right up until their last year or would they have to get new ones when these wore out? Or was it just an age reduction spell that took a certain amount of years off? He hmmed, he'd have to borrow Kaiba's to find out, since Rich-Boy was two years older then them.

They split up for an hour to buy their new supplies, Kari dragged Yugi into 'Quality Quidditch Supplies' to get their own broomsticks, since they were allowed them as second years, while Yami stayed outside. He wasn't overly happy about Yugi flying, but there was no way on Earth or any other planet he was flying, no way, no how, not even if Kaiba joined the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, well maybe if Kaiba did that but… Kaiba and Mokuba followed the two in, Kaiba smirked at Yami as he passed. Yami scowled back and Kaiba cheered up slightly, annoying Yami was so much fun, especially after he'd found out about the Pharaoh's fear of flying last school year.

Kaiba came out smirking slightly, with a broomstick over his shoulder, again giving Yami a very big smirk. Yami chose to ignore him as Yugi and Kari came out with Nimbus 2000s. Kari was growling slightly, Kaiba had chosen to lord the fact he could afford then newest broomstick out, over them and had bought a Nimbus 2001.

They all met up at Flourish and Blotts, Kaiba and Joey were reduced to growling at each other again, and found they couldn't get into the store. The reason for this was clear as Yugi pointed out the banner above the door and across the upper windows.

_Gilderoy Lockheart_

_Will be signing copies of his autobiography_

_MAGICAL ME_

_Today 12.30 – 4.30 pm_

"We can actually meet him!" Hermione squealed, "I mean, he's written the entire booklist." Kari's face lit up, this would be interesting. Ombre looked at her hikari's face and smiled, she'd known her hikari would like to meet the man who'd written this booklist. The group squeezed inside, just about managing to squeeze their brooms in. A long queue wound right to the back of the shop, where Gilderoy Lockheart was signing his books. They grabbed a copy of his books each and sneaked up the the line where the Weasley's and Hermione's parents were waiting.

"Oh there you all are, good." Said Mrs Weasley, she sounded breathless and patted her hair, "We'll be able to see him in a minute."

Gilderoy Lockheart came slowly into view, seated at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzling white teeth at the crowd. Yami sighed, this guy obviously had a bigger ego then Kaiba, if that was possible. Kari was quickly scanning the first book as the line moved forward. Hermione poked her as their turn came up and Kari grinned at her, then blushed as she looked at Lockheart, a blush that Kaiba didn't miss. She had to have read something really good about the man in her book.

A short, irritable-looking man who was taking photos with a very large black camera that emitted puffs of purple smoke with every flash. Kari stepped forward to have her book signed but was shoved aside by the photographer, who spotted Harry in the crowd and pushed him forward. Lockheart was about to smile for the camera when he spotted… "You must be Yugi Moto, and I believe you are Joey Wheeler and o'my is this Kari Ironhide; Queen of games? I have heard such a lot about you." They were pulled forward out the crowd, much to Yugi and Joey's discomfort and Kari's happiness that he'd recognised them, Kaiba was scowling, how dare Lockheart recognise the mutt, but now him, former world champion. Harry, Yugi and Joey were uncomfortable as their picture was taken with Lockheart, while Kari looked like she was going to faint from the excitment.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Lockheart said loudly, What an incredible moment this is! The perfect time for me to make a little announcement, when young Harry here steeped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted my autobiography, which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge…" Joey was surprised to see Kari clapping along with the rest of the witches in the store, "He had no idea he would shortly be getting much more then my book, Magical Me. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I take great pride in announcing that this September I will be taking the post as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." The crowd clapped and cheered and Kari grinned, while Joey looked Yami in the eyes and they shared a look that clearly said, "Help us pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Harry was loaded down with Lockheart's entire collection, and the group moved to the side of the room, after getting Kari's books sighend, where Ginny Weasley, the youngest of the Weasley children was waiting. Harry gave her the books, You can have those, I'll buy my own…"

"I bet you loved that, didn't you Potter." A voice said, a voice no one in the group had trouble recognising, it was Malfoy and him and Bakura were walking over, the crowd's noise meaning anything they said was only audible to them and the group. Kari growled and stood between Ombre and Bakura, who smirked at her as Malfoy continued. "Famous Harry Potter, can't even got into a book shop without being recognised."

"Well that's a switch, I thought you were supposed to protect Kari, not the other way around, Princess! And yet, she's the one getting recognised in public, I bet you thought that was fun didn't you, Kari?" Bakura sneered, as Malfoy and Ron traded insults, "But then I suppose she's obviously the stronger of the two of you, since she's never lost her soul to the Shadow Realm. And you're no match for me, so don't even bother." Ombre growled and went to attack Bakura but was held back by Joey and Yami while Hermione and Harry had to stop Ron from attacking Malfoy.

"Draco, Bakura!" A tall man snapped, walking over, to the group. "So," He said turning to the group who were with Harry, "You're the famous Harry Potter, and you must be Yugi Muto." He said, turning to each of them in turn, "I've heard so much about you." Bakura smirked.

"In fact I know everything about you, my adopted son was so good to tell me everything, how you Yugi Muto, are a pure blood wizard whose mother was a squib, with no magic of her own, and whose own magic is so weak, you need the Pharaoh," He waved his hand at Yami, who growled at the insult done to Yugi, "To get you out of any trouble you get into. And that without the Millennium Puzzle, you would still be being bullied instead of being the great duellist you are." Yugi had to restrain Yami at this point. "Even so, how can you even stand to be around these…" He was at a loss for a suitable insult.

"Is everything alright over here?" Mr Weasley asked, then noticed who was talking down at them. "Lucius."

"Well, well, Arthur Weasley, I hope the Ministry are paying you overtime for all your extra raids." He picked some of Ginny's books out of her cauldron and tutted, "Obviously not. Dear me, associating with muggle borns, and I thought you could sink no lower, honestly, what is the use of being an insult to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it." With a last mocking glance over at the group he dropped Ginny's books and left, "Come on boys, I don't want you to be tainted like Muto obviously was."

"How dare he? HOW DARE HE? I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" Kaiba exploded, Yami had to hide his smirk for fear of death, he'd won the bet, though he was shocked at Kaiba's next move as the CEO grabbed Lucius Malfoy's robes, "I'll have you know, I'm a CEO for a powerful company and I earn more money in a year, then you will see in your lifetime! If you dare insult me like that again I will see to it that you will be drained of every last knut to your name!"

"How dare you touch me you filthy mudblood!" Lucius snapped, going white with fury, "You wouldn't dare!"

"Just watch me!" Kaiba snapped back. With a click he opened his phone and dialled a number, still holding the wizard's robes. "Vera, research Lucius Malfoy. I want to know everything, including all debts and loans and start buying them up." He sneered at Lucius, "By the end of today, I'll own you."

"Seto." Mokuba said firmly, grabbing his brother's arm, Kaiba scowled but let go of Lucius Malfoy, who made a very hasty retreat, with Malfoy and Bakura following.

Joey whistled, "Well done Rich-Boy." Kaiba turned to him and glared. "I do not need your praise Mutt!" He began and continued to rant, Kari and Mokuba timing him as he did so, and when he stooped out of breath, after 14 minutes 43 seconds, he stormed off back to the Leaky Cauldron, Kari turned to Mokuba and pulled her purse out, "Okay Mokbua, you win the bet." She said, handing over a golden Galleon.

"He… He… I can't believe he just exploded at me like that! What did I do? Errr today I mean?" Joey asked, shocked by Kaiba's explosion.

"You never know Joey, Kaiba might decide to be civil this year, I mean he's done his worst, what else is there?" Yugi replied as they made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron. The whole shop had heard Kaiba's rant and now the group just wanted to go back to their rooms.

"And he was practically friendly towards us at the end of last year." Yami added.

"He'll be fine for the next week. My big brother just needs to blow off some steam." Mokuba spoke up, "He'll be nice now he's planning to destroy Lucius Malfoy."

"Could he really do that?" Ron asked as Harry and the Weasley's prepared to return to the Burrow, "What he threatened to do to Malfoy's dad?" Everyone looked at Mokuba and Kari.

"Well…" Mokuba began.

"I expect he can and will do that, he's taken down bigger targets before now." Kari said seriously.

"But Malfoy's loaded!" Fred said, disbelievingly.

"So? That doesn't mean he's safe. I know Kaiba has been hiring Wizards over the Summer and I can guess what for…"

Mokuba finalised the statement, "If Malfoy isn't bankrupt by the end of the week it's either because my brother is toying with him, or Malfoy works for Kaiba Corp now."

With that scary thought, the Weasleys and Harry returned to the Burrow and the gang headed up to their rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, ready to meet up again of the day of the train to Hogwarts.


	3. The Hogwarts Express

Kaiba was grinning as they all got into the taxis to King's Cross Station, arriving with ten minutes to spare. The monsters were going to follow the train, hopefully... The others all filed through the hidden gateway, though for some random reason, Yugi wouldn't let go of his suitcase. Joey was about to go through the gate when Harry and the Weasleys arrived. Joey stopped and was chatting Ron, Yugi and Kari both wanted to try out for the Quidditch team and Joey wanted to find out more about it, while Harry waited for the rest of the Weasleys to go through the gate before attempting to go through together. They ran for it and…

**CRASH**

Their trolleys tipped over and their stuff went everywhere, Hedwig's cage rolled off and Joey chased it. People were whispering about Animal Cruelty. "Why can't we get through?" Harry hissed.

"I dunno…" Joey said, looking wildly round.

"We're going to miss the train, I don't understand why the gateway's sealed itself…" Ron said, staring at the clock, ten seconds, nine seconds… Harry tried to get through the gateway by pushing his trolley through, but the wall stayed solid. Three seconds, two seconds, one second… "It's gone," Ron said sounding stunned, "The trains left. I don't know how long it will take for Mum and Dad to get back through to us."

"I think we'd better wait by the car, so we don't attract too much atten…"

"Harry!" Ron's eyes gleamed, "The car!"

"What about the car?" Joey asked, warily.

"We can fly it too Hogwarts!"

"Fly?" Joey went green. Ron looked at him as they went out to the car.

"Yeah, the car can fly." Joey looked up and Ron and Harry's gazes followed, the monsters were perched on top of the train station, all except Kuriboh, which was still missing.

"Can you fly it?" Harry asked, as Red Eyes flew down and landed next to Joey, growling loudly.

"No problem!" Ron said, "Come on, we have to hurry if we're going to keep up with the train." Joey was still green as they heaved their trunks into the boot and got into the front seats. "Check no one is watching."

Harry looked around; the dragons had taken off, with the magicians on Red Eyes Darkness Dragon and Red Eyes Black Dragon's backs. Other then the Duel Monsters no one was watching. "Ok."

Ron pressed a silver button and they vanished, Harry could feel the car vibrating around them as they took off, the monsters followed.

* * *

"Guys, where's Joey?" Yugi asked, holding his suitcase tightly.

"He was right behind us." Kari replied looking around the train, "Ohhhh, don't tell me he missed it!"

"Ok, then we won't tell you." The Weasley twins called, "You lot should grab a carriage before they all fill up, Joey was with Harry and Ron and they both missed the train. They'll be at Hogwarts, they'll just have to contact the school for another way into Hogwarts." George snuck up behind Yugi and grabbed the suitcase, "What have you got in that case that's so important that you won't let it go?" Yugi tried to grab it back and Yami snatched it off George.

"Yugi, please don't tell me…" They piled into two carriages and Yami put Yugi's case on the table and opened it. Inside was… "Yugi! You were supposed to get the dragons to bring it!" Kuriboh was staring at them with huge eyes from inside the opened suitcase.

Yugi smiled sheepishly and Yami tried to grab the fuzzball as it bounced out the door and into the next carriage over, where it annoyed Kaiba to the point where he drop kicked it out the door. "MUTO!" Kaiba roared, "Get your stupid fuzzball under control, I have work to do!" Yami grimaced and grabbed the fuzzball just as it bounced into the next carriage down from Kaiba's, which contained five second year Gryffindors who smiled at him and luckily didn't ask too many questions.

"Yugi," Yami sighed as he entered their carriage, "We weren't supposed to bring our monsters on the train, remember?"

"Tell Bakura that!" Rebecca said, pointing out to the passageway, where an extremely pissed off Malfoy and an equally annoyed Bakura were being followed by Crabbe and Goyle and Bakura's Dark Necrofear, and they stopped outside Kaiba's carriage, where Kari, Mokuba and Kaiba were sat, trying to get some work done. "Uh oh!" She murmered.

Ombre rose to her feet and shot out the door, quickly followed by Yami, and entered the next carriage over, where Kaiba was stood between Malfoy's thugs and Mokuba, and Kari and Bakura were engaged in a staring contest. Both the CEO and Kari's laptops were on but their work had been saved and shoved aside when the four Slytherins and Dark Necrofear had entered the carriage.

"You ruined my father! Now no one will hire him and it's all your fault!" Malfoy growled, his wand drawn and pointed at Mokuba.

"I warned him not to insult me, he should have listened." Kaiba said, Yami recognised Kaiba's tone of voice, which was the you-can't-hurt-me-because-I'm-made-of-ice tone he used when something went wrong, or if Mokuba was in danger for some reason.

"Kuriboh!" Yugi yelled, as the fuzzball bounced into the carriage, Yugi dashed into the room after the fuzzball, catching it but crashing into Draco Malfoy as he did so. Yugi, Kuriboh and Malfoy fell to the floor and before Yami could do anything Kuriboh had exploded and he and Ombre had been blasted back into the hall.

Everyone rushed out of their carriages to see what had exploded, and Yami picked himself up quickly, rushing over to the door as the crowd in the walkway became very large, very quickly. "Yugi?" Yugi groaned as he sat up, having been blasted into the doorframe.

"I forgot Kuriboh explodes on contact with the enemy." Kari groaned, looking around at the mess.

"What's all this then?" A woman shouted over the chattering students, Yami recognised the voice as belonging to the trolley lady. The students parted to let her through, most returning to their carriages, and she stopped outside the wreckage that had been Kaiba's compartment. Malfoy, Bakura, Crabbe and Goyle all filed out the compartment, Malfoy's robes were wreaked, and Bakura was glaring at his monster who was, to Yami's eyes, not responding.

 _My Pharaoh_ Yami's head shot up at the Dark Magician's words, looking skywards to where he could sense his Dark Magician. _Your friend has decided to do something reckless._

_'What? Who?'_

_Joey. The dragons won't tell their partners because they are having too much fun flying circles around a flying car your friend is using to get to school._

_'Can you do anything to stop them being seen? Wait, a flying car? Joey… flying?'_

_Yes, Dark Magician Girl seems to like riding Red Eyes Darkness Dragon so she probably won't tell her partner, I'd rather have my feet on the ground_ Yami turned his attention back to the train.

"Uh guys… we have a problem… Joey's…" He pointed skywards.

"What?" The gang shouted, Yugi had discovered a pair of huge eyes under the table and was trying to work out who they belonged to without going under there himself.

"Why didn't they just send an owl asking for help?" Hermione and Kari spoke at the same time, and laughed at each other.

"Trust the mutt to try to get into trouble before term even starts." Kaiba smirked, with a look of anticipation, Yami sighed and wondered what Yugi was doing as the twelve year old version poked his hand under the table.

"Got it!" Yugi called and pulled a fuzzball out from under the table.

"I thought it exploded!" Kaiba growled, the explosion had knocked his laptop off the table and onto the floor, where he picked it up and then turned to Mokuba and checked he was ok before checking his laptop still worked.

Kuriboh squeaked and bounced out of the room, and Yugi chased it. The trolley lady wasn't sure what to make of it all. "Is everything alright here?" She asked.

"Fine, I'll take five of everything." Kaiba snapped, paying for his purchases. Mokuba cheered and grabbed all the chocolate frogs before dashing out the door. "Mokuba come back here!" Kaiba yelled, chasing his brother out the door.

Kari eyed up the sweets, "Kaiba doesn't need all of these, surely?"

Hermione stared at her and sniffed, "They're Kaiba's not yours."

"But five of everything…"

"Hikari!" Ombre growled.

"Alright, alright." Kari sighed, picking up her laptop. "But he won't share with us."

"Yes but why would Kaiba buy five of everything? He and Mokuba can't eat them all and Kaiba doesn't know what a sweet tooth is, let alone have one." Yami said as Yugi returned with Kuriboh in his arms.

"Why else? He wants to torment us." Kari grumbled.

Yami nodded, "That sounds like the Kaiba we love to hate."

"He can't be that bad surely." Hermione said in Kaiba's defence.

"Wait and see, he'll be back soon." Kari said, looking up from her screen.

"Why did you bring your laptop this year anyway?" Hermione questioned.

"Because she's my new Head of the Virtual Gaming Department and she'll have to work for me while she's studying." Kaiba said as he returned, dragging Mokuba behind him, "And you better have kept your hands off of my sweets while I was gone, Muto!"

"Told you so." Kari grinned at Hermione.

"Kaiba, we wouldn't touch anything of yours without asking…" Yami paused, "Can I rephrase that?"

Kari and Ombre howled with laughter while Kaiba wasn't sure what to make of that sentence then he blushed, "Fine I won't share if you're going to be like that. Here Hermione." He said, chucking the bag of sweets over to the only person not laughing at him.

"Thank you, Seto." Hermione said, dashing off with the sweets.

"Seto?" Kari asked Ombre, mouth agape.

"Yes, I do actually have a first name." Kaiba said to the two girls, glaring.

"Yes Mr Kaib… Seto, sir." Kari said, quickly changing what she was about to say.

"Just because I have a first name, doesn't mean you can use it, Ironhide."

"I have a first name too, you know." Kari growled.

"Yes, I know… Kari." Kaiba said, saying the name with a smirk. Kari growled and slammed her laptop shut, grabbing the backpack with her robes in and storming out of the room. As Yami, Yugi and Ombre followed Kari out, Kaiba spoke to the thin air, "I think this year will be fun."

* * *

Several hours later they were pulling into Hogwarts, and far above them, Harry, Ron and Joey, who was decidedly green and had just reverted to staying where he couldn't see the ground, were having car trouble. The dragons, bored of flying in circles, flew downwards towards the school, while the engine of the car died completely.

Red Eyes rose, trying to support the car, Red Eyes Darkness followed once it had dropped off Dark Magician Girl, who turned and watched the car falling. The two dragons and the car crashed into the nearest tree. "Are you both OK?" Harry asked, looking around at the other two.

"My wand," Ron said shakily, "Look at my wand!" It had snapped almost in two, hanging limply by a few splinters. Joey chose this moment to open the window and barf. Harry was about to say something when something hit the side of the car, with the force of a charging bull. "What was…?"

Joey looked in time to see a branch attack the car, the tree they'd hit was attacking them. "The…The tree?" He stuttered. As the tree battered the car the engine started up again. "Reverse! Reverse!" Joey yelled, the car shot backwards and once they sped out of reach, the car ejected them and took off into the forest. Joey looked around at all their stuff, which had been flung all over the ground. "Never, ever again!"

"Come on," Harry said wearily, looking around at the monsters and their stuff, "We'd better go up to the school."

Kari looked around as she sat down at the Gryffindor table, where were Harry, Ron and Joey?

_Don't worry mistress, they are nearly to your school_

_"Dark Magician Girl?"_

_Yes, Just enjoy the sorting, we'll bring them in safely_

_"Ok"_ Kari turned her attention back to the Sorting in time for…

"Hawkins, Rebecca."

Rebecca sat nervously on the stool as Professor McGonagall put the hat on her head.

'Hum… a smart girl who'd easily match minds with the seventh years, a good head for learning and the ability to absorb knowledge like a sponge. The house for you is…' "RAVENCLAW!"

The Ravenclaw table cheered and Rebecca smiled as she sat down. The sorting continued until it reached…

"Kaiba, Mokuba"

Kari noticed Kaiba's rapt attention, as he watched his brother put on the sorting hat, and looked around at the houses, he'd be really embarrassed if his brother ended up in Hufflepuff with all the duff students but it would be worse, he could end up with Yugi and that lot in…"Not Gryffindor… Not Gryffindor…" He found himself murmuring under his breath.

"GRYFFINDOR!" The sorting hat yelled.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Kaiba yelled, then realised everyone was looking at him and sat back down, going red in embarrassment for the first time in he had forgotten how long. He settled for banging his head against the table, taking up Joey's game of can-I-knock-myself-out.

"Why is Kaiba banging his head against the table?" Ron asked as they looked in the window.

"I dunno. Didn't his little brother just become a Gryffindor?" Harry asked, looking along the row of teachers, one was missing, "Has anyone seen Snape?"

"Maybe he left," Joey said, "Because he missed out on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job again."

"Or he might have been fired," said Ron enthusiastically, "I mean everyone hates him…"

"Or maybe he's waiting to hear why you three didn't arrive on the school train, like everyone else!" Said a cold voice behind them. They spun around, all the monsters bar two stood between them and Severus Snape, who smiling in a way that reminded Joey of Kaiba when Joey had done something to land himself in deep trouble with the CEO. "Follow me!"

Not even daring to look at each other, Joey ordered the monsters to stay there with the luggage and followed Ron and Harry, who were trailing after Snape.

_My Pharaoh_

_'What is it?'_

_Your friend has arrived and is about to get into trouble for taking a flying car_

"Uh oh." Yami sighed, _'Which teacher caught them?'_

_The greasy haired one._

_'Snape'_ Yami filed the others in on the situation as they returned to the Common Room for another year, their bags, cases and monsters were waiting for them in their dorms. The gang waited in the Common Room for the guys to either tell them what had happened or to help Joey, Harry and Ron pack their bags.

It turned out they all had detention and were under threat of suspension for the rest of the year. Red Eyes flew down from the dormitory and settled in by the fire, as Harry explained the events of his summer, including a house elf named Dobby and Yami told them the tales of the Duel Monsters.


	4. The Year's First Lessons

The next day however, Snape intercepted the Japanese transfer students on their way down to the Great Hall, "How dare you bring those dangerous creatures to Hogwarts!" He shouted, waving his hand towards the windows where the group could clearly see four of the five dragons chasing each other around, with Kuriboh and the Spellcasters watching, Blue Eyes was no where in sight, but it was probably around somewhere.

Yami had to wonder why Snape hadn't challenged Joey about the monsters last night. Snape growled as he looked out the window, he thought he'd been seeing things last night, but here in the morning daylight he could see the beasts clearly and he wasn't happy about them. Rebecca bounced down the stairs.

"Guys have you seen my Emerald Dragon?"

"One of those beasts are yours?" Snape snapped at her, Rebecca eeped and hid behind Yugi, "Do you have any idea how dangerous those things could be?" Snape had heard about the exploding fuzzball on the train, and wanted to know whose it was, so he could yell at them. "Dragons are not supposed be inside the grounds, they are dangerous and deadly creatures, not pets!"

"Is there a problem Severus?" Joey looked over to the stairs, where Professor Dumbledore was descending slowly.

"No problem Headmaster…"

"Amazing creatures, these dragons, aren't they?" Dumbledore said, "And so well tamed. I think they'll do a good job as guardians of the grounds, don't you think so, Severus?"

Snape opened and shut his mouth, looking oddly like a goldfish. "Guardians..?"

"Yes, well after last years events, I thought the school needed and bit more protection."

"But dragons, Sir?"

"I can assure you that they are very tame and will not attack anyone unless someone attacks a student first, I spoke to them myself."

"You spoke to them…" Snape looked at Professor Dumbledore as if he'd gone mad.

"Yes, all five of them proved most talkative, and so did our other guests."

The gang went pale, what had their monsters revealed, Dumbledore hadn't known everything about the items, only a few things, could their monsters have told Dumbledore everything?

"The other beasts? The fuzzball and the two 'Spellcasters' The fuzzball exploded and caused damage to the train!"

"I'm sorry about that sirs," Yugi said, stepping forward, "Kuriboh explodes on contact with the enemy, since he thought I was in danger, he tried to protect me."

"And the demon?" Yami knew immediately who he was talking about.

"Dark Necrofear." Yami said out loud. Snape stared at him and Yami shrugged.

"I believe it belongs to one of your students, Severus, after all it came on the train with a group of them." Dumbledore said, "And it has given his word that he will not endanger any Hogwarts student." Yami snorted, he didn't trust Bakura as far as he could throw him and he was going to treat the tomb-robber's monster the same way.

Snape noticed Yami's disbelief, "I doubt a demon will pay attention to promises."

"And I doubt Mr Malfoy want to be expelled." Dumbledore replied, "Yes, Severus, I am aware of the adoption of a new son into the Malfoy family. And Mr Bakura Malfoy will not want to be expelled." The group were distracted by shouting coming from the great hall, "Ah, I see someone has received a Howler." Dumbledore said, distracted by the noise.

"Howler?" Kari whispered to Ombre who shrugged in confusion. "You lot can go, should go, otherwise you'll have no breakfast."

They ran into the great hall, where a red envelope was… shouting at Ron? "Grandpa told me about those," Yugi said quietly, "It's called a Howler, it shouts the message it was supposed to give, normally used by angry parents to shout at a child from a far distance."

Professor McGonagall handed them their timetables as they ate quickly and quietly, the talking in the Great Hall slowly coming back as more people recovered from the shock of the Howler, Ron looked annoyed while Hermione was looking smug. Probably one of her I-told-you-so moods. Yugi looked at their timetable and saw they had double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs next, Ryou waved and Yugi smiled at him, Ryou had arrived in Diagon Alley a couple of days after them, having been away with his parents over the summer holidays.

The group got up and went to class, closely followed by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Yugi hung back to talk to Ryou about the summer, reaching the classroom as Professor Sprout bustled in. They rushed over to the group, which were stood around a table, in Greenhouse three, but were disturbed from their talking by Professor Lockheart. "Harry!" He called, "I've just been wanting a word! If you don't mind Professor Sprout…" Professor Sprout looked like she did mind and so did Harry, as he was escorted out of the greenhouse.

Joey looked at the others, "What do you think that was about?"

"Yesterday probably." Ron said thoughtfully.

"The car." Ombre laughed, "How could you hit a tree that hits back?"

"I told you, it was a Womping Willow, it hit the car back when he crashed into it." Ron growled, embarrassed at his driving. "At least I didn't throw up."

"Who threw up?"

"Me." Joey said ruefully, which caused the group to laugh as Harry rejoined their numbers.

"We'll be re-potting Mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" To no-one's surprise both Hermione and Kari's hands shot up. Kari smiled at Hermione and let her speak.

"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorive," Hermione said, sounding as though she'd swallowed the text book. "It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed, to their original state."

"Excellent, ten points to Gryffindor." Said the Professor, "The mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?"

Again the two girl's hands shot up, Hermione narrowly missed Harry's glasses, this time Hermione conceded the floor to Kari, "The cry of the mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it."

"Precisely, take another ten points to your house." Said the Professor, feeling as if Kari and Hermione were dancing around each other, trying to work out how much each other knew. "Now the mandrakes we have here are very young. Everyone take a pair of earmuffs…" She passed around a box of earmuffs, and Kari was last to take a pair, ending up with an embarrassing pink and fluffy pair. "When I tell you to put them on, make sure your ears are completely covered, when it is safe for you to take them off I will give you all a thumbs up. Right, earmuffs on."

The group snapped their earmuffs on over their ears. Kari was happy to see Professor Sprout put a fluffy pink pair over her own ears, before she rolled up her sleeves and grasped a tuffy plant firmly and pulled hard. Kari gasped, both audibly and mentally, _"That is the ugliest baby I've ever seen."_

' _You're right.'_ Ombre replied.

Instead of roots, a small muddy and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green mottled green skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs.

Neville Longbottom fainted, and was caught by Joey before he hit the ground.

Professor Sprout took a large plant pot from under the table and plunged the mandrake into it, burying him in dark, damp compost until only tufted leaves were visible. Professor Sprout took her own earmuffs off and then gave them the thumbs up. "Looks like Longbottom forgot his earmuffs."

"No Professor, he just fainted." Joey replied, having managed to take his earmuffs off with one hand.

"Well put him down and grab a plant pot and start re-potting." Joey nodded and propped Neville up against a wall and went back over to the group of tables the group had practically taken over. Harry, Ron and Hermione talked to a Hufflepuff they knew by sight for a short while before they had to put on their earmuffs and get to work. Ryou worked with Joey and two friends from his own house, having found it easier to make friends since his yami had gotten a separate body.

They all dashed off afterwards for a wash, then headed for Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class, "Miss Ironhide," Both Ombre and Kari stood up, "I mean Miss Kari Ironhide, can you please come with me, the rest of you get on with transfiguring your beetles into buttons."

' _What have you done?'_ Ombre asked her hikari.

" _Nothing."_

' _What does she want to see you about?'_

" _You'll see."_ Kari slammed the link shut and Ombre growled.

"What's wrong?" Joey asked, watching Harry and Ron have trouble with Ron's broken wand.

"She won't tell me." Ombre growled, poking her beetle with her wand and making it run off the table, Kari came back into the room, writing something on her timetable as she did so, the Professor followed her back into the classroom and provided Ombre and Ron, who'd squashed his bug with his elbow, with new beetles.

Ombre snatched Kari's timetable off of her, there was an extra transfiguration class at the end of each day, giving her lessons right up until tea time. "Why are you getting extra transfiguration classes?"

"Because." Kari said aggravatingly.

"But you're not failing this class; in fact you're doing better then Hermione." Ombre stated, "If you need extra lessons in anything it would be potions." Kari sighed and opened her end of the mind link.

" _I'm going to be studying the more advanced transfiguration spells, and it's going to include the training to become an animagus. But I'm not supposed to tell anyone. She caught me reading up on the animagus spells in the Forbidden Section of the library last yeary. She said, 'I don't want to lose a valuable student just because they want to try something without training, hoping for sheer dumb luck.'"_

' _Fine, but you better not rope the rest of us into extra lessons.'_

" _I won't."_ Kari promised.

"Problems?" Joey asked, poking his beetle and managing to turn it into a beetle.

"No." Kari shook her head, the conversation was disturbed by Ron's wand letting off a volley of bangs like a firecracker.

Ron's temper wasn't improved when Hermione showed off a handful of buttons she'd made in transfiguration. "What have we got next?" Joey asked as they ate.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts." Hermione and Kari said immediately.

"Why?" Ron demanded, as he seized Hermione's timetable, "Have you outlined all of Lockheart's lessons with little hearts?" Hermione snatched her timetable back, blushing. Joey grabbed Kari's DADA book as she pulled it out of her bag.

"Mrs Kari Lockheart?" He asked, disgusted. Kari growled and punched Joey, snatching back her book in the process.

"I am old enough to get married you know, I'm nearly the same age as Professor Lockheart."

"He's at least 28! Almost ten years older then you!" Yugi said, a little too loudly, "He might even be even older, he wears a wig!"

"How do you know?" Kari snapped. Yugi squeaked and hid behind Yami. Yami sighed.

"We saw him chasing it when Kaiba's Blue Eyes took off near him and blew his wig off."

"I don't believe you." Hermione said, turning her attention to the door as Harry and Lockheart entered, Harry looked extremely harassed.

Lockheart introduced himself then gave out test papers to see how much of the books they had read. Yami looked at the questions in disgust.

What is Gilderoy Lockheart's favourite colour?

What is Gilderoy Lockheart's secret ambition?

And it continued in that stream for 54 questions. Yugi and Yami looked at each other and Joey rolled his eyes, while Kari and Hermione answered the questions quickly and easily.

Half an hour later, Lockheart collected in the papers and rifled through them in front of the class. "Tutt tutt, only one person answered all the questions correctly, Miss Hermione Granger?" Hermione stood up, "Ten points to Gryffindor!" Hermione smiled, "And Miss Kari Ironhide?" Kari stood up, "You had all bar three right, take another five points for Gryffindor."

Kari grinned, "Now be warned!" He started talking, Joey was interested inspit of himself as Lockheart was talking like he had something dangerous in the cage by his desk. "I must ask you not to scream, it might provoke them!" Lockheart whipped the cover off. "Yes!" He said dramatically, "Freshly caught Cornish pixies!"

Joey snorted, Red Eyes could have eaten a few of those for desert. Lockheart looked at him oddly, "Yes?"

"Sir, I'm sorry to tell you this, but my dragon's scarier then those things." Joey said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Really? Then you won't mind if I open the cage." Lockheart said cheerily and opened the door.

It was chaos, the pixies shot in every direction like bullets, Yami wasn't sure for a couple of seconds if someone hadn't used Multiply on the pixies as they'd exited the cage. "Come on now, round them up, round them up! They're only pixies…" Lockheart shouted. He drew his wand out from his sleeve, "Peskipeksi Pesernomi!"

The spell had no effect and the pixies seized Lockheart's wand and threw it out the window, at which point Joey burst out laughing, and Lockheart had to dive under the table to avoid getting hit by the falling chandelier, Lockheart didn't hear a crash and looked over the desk to where Kari's forehead was glowing with the millennium symbol and the chandelier was floating in midair. "Move!" She grunted, and he did quickly, letting her drop the chandelier onto the desk which broke. She toppled backwards and was caught by Ombre, as Lockheart dashed out of the room.

"I'll just let you deal with them then!" He said, Ombre looked around and saw the group were the last ones there.

"The Orb doesn't work on them." Kari whispered exhaustion thick in her voice, the symbol's glow died down.

"Can you believe him?" roared Ron, as one of the remaining pixies bit his ear.

"He just wants us to get some hands on experience." Said Hermione, pulling out her wand, "Immobulus!" She called, freezing the pixies in mid air and stuffing them back in their cages.

"Hand's on?" Harry said, grabbing a couple of pixies, "Hermione, he didn't know what he was doing."

"Rubbish," said Hermione, who supported Kari while Ombre grabbed the last of the pixies by climbing on the fallen chandelier, "You've read his books, look at the amazing things he's done."

"He says he's done!" Ron muttered.


	5. Qudditch, Swimming and Potential Trouble

Harry spent a lot of the time over the few days trying to avoid Lockheart. Harder to avoid was a Gryffindor first year by the name of Colin Creevey, who was obsessed with taking photos. Hedwig was still annoyed about the car journey and Ron's wand surpassed itself Friday by flying out of Ron's hand and hitting Professor Flitwick between the eyes. Harry was glad when the weekend came.

However Harry and Yugi were shaken awake earlier then they would have liked by Oliver Wood, captain of the Quidditch team. Kari was already awake and down in the Common Room, reading.

"Wassamatter?" Harry asked groggily as Oliver Wood moved across to Yugi and Yami's beds.

"Quidditch practise, which one of them is Yugi?"

"Bed closest to the door." Harry groaned, getting out of bed. He looked out the window, "Oliver, it's the crack of dawn."

"Exactly," Yugi looked at Oliver sleepily, "Come on Yugi, Quidditch tryouts today." He waited until Yugi was unlikely to go back to sleep, then moved on to waking Ron up. The four of them walked down to the Quidditch pitch together, where the rest of the Quidditch team was already in the changing rooms. They were followed down by people from other years all wanting to try out as reserves. This was the first year Gryffindor had been taking on reserves in two decades, but Oliver Wood had decided to take some on after they'd missed out on the Quidditch Cup because they hadn't had a reserve seeker.

Colin Creevey had followed them all the way down and had driven Harry up the wall. The try outs took place, with Yugi getting a place as a reserve chaser, though Wood had had a go at Colin, thinking he was a spy for Slytherin. They were about to start proper practise when green robes filed onto the pitch. "Oh I don't believe this! I booked the pitch for today! We'll see about this!"

"Flint!" Wood bellowed as he came into land, "This is our practise time, we booked the pitch for tryouts and practise today!"

"Ah," said Flint, with a look of trollish cunning on his face, "but I've got a note signed by Professor Snape, seeing as we have to train our new Seeker."

"You have a new Seeker?" Said Wood distracted, "Who?" From behind the six large figures came a seventh, smaller boy, smirking. It was Draco Malfoy. Yugi landed next to the team, "Aren't you…?"

"That's not all that's new this year." Seven highly polished broomstick glinted in the sunlight, the words Nimbus 2001 gleamed.

"The latest model, Draco's father bought them for us."

' _And how exactly did he afford them? I thought Kaiba had bankrupted him.'_ Yugi thought.

"Oh look a pitch invasion!" Flint laughed, the gang were rushing over to see what was going on.

"What's happening?" Yami asked Yugi, "Why aren't you playing? And what's **he** doing here?" He was looking at Malfoy, taking in the Slytherin Quidditch robes. Ron was gaping at the new brooms.

"Good aren't they?" Malfoy said smoothly, "But perhaps if the Gryffindor team raised some money by raffling off those Cleansweep Fives, you might be able to afford better brooms." The Slytherin team howled with laughter.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor Team had to buy their way in, they got in on pure talent!" Kari said sharply. Malfoy's smug look flickered.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood!" He spat.

It was the second time Harry had heard the phrase and he'd known it must be bad from the way Kaiba had reacted, but he wasn't quiet prepared for the entire Quidditch team to try to leap on Malfoy. Flint had to dive between the two groups to stop Fred and George beating Malfoy to a pulp. "How dare you!" said Ron, as he plunged his hand into his robes and pulled out his wand, yelling "You'll pay for that, Malfoy!" And managed to get it aimed at Malfoy's face.

A loud bang echoed around the stadium, with the monsters finally arriving as green light shot out the wrong end of Ron's wand pushing him backwards onto the grass. The Dark Magician Girl had her staff pointed at Malfoy, while the rest of the monsters glared and growled at the Slytherin Quidditch team.

"Ron!" Hermione squeaked, "Ron! Are you alright?"

Ron didn't reply, instead he gave a great belch and several slugs dribbled out of his mouth onto his lap.

The Slytherin team, despite being afraid of the monsters, doubled up with laughter, while the Gryffindors gathered around Ron, though no one seemed to want to touch him.

"We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest." Said Harry to the rest of the group, Yami and Joey nodded and pulled Ron up by the arms. Harry had to shove Colin out of the way as the group headed to Hagrid's.

They were within twenty feet of Hagrid's hut when they were forced to hide to avoid Gilderoy Lockheart, who came striding out of Hagrid's hut. "It's a simple matter of knowing what you're doing!" Lockheart called loudly to Hagrid, "If you need help, you know where I am!"

Once Lockheart was out of sight they came out of hiding. "'Bin wonderin' when you'd come ter see me, come in, come in, thought yer mighta bin Professor Lockheart back again!" Hagrid said, smiling.

Yami and Joey supported Ron over the threshold and Harry explained about the slug problem, as the two teens lowered Ron into a chair. The monsters settled down around the building.

"Better out then in." Hagrid said, plonking a big copper basin in front of Ron, "That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand…?"

"What did Lockheart want?" Yugi asked, putting his and Harry's broomsticks by the door.

"Givin' me advise on getting' kelpies out of a well…" Hagrid started ranting about Lockheart, and Yugi and Harry looked at him in surprise. "…If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle."

Hermione immediately went on the defensive, "I think you're being unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job."

"He was the only man for the job," said Hagrid, offering them a mass of treacle fudge, which they turned down, though Kari was ignoring all of them, staring out the window, "Who was Ron trying to curse anyway."

"Malfoy called Kari something. It must have been really bad because everyone got mad." Yugi said.

"It was bad," Kari said, turning away from the window, "Kaiba told me what it means after Lucius Malfoy called him one, he… he called me a Mudblood."

"He never." Hagrid growled.

"What does it mean?" Joey asked.

"It's about the most insulting thing he could think of." Gasped Ron, coming up for air, "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who was muggle-born, you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards, like Malfoy's family, who think that they're better then everyone else, because they're what people call, pure-blood." Ron burped and slugs fell into the bowl, "I mean the rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all. I mean look at Neville Longbottom, he's pure-blood and he can barely stand a cauldron the right way up."

"It doesn't bother me, after all, it came from Draco Malfoy after all." Kari said, but Ombre could sense it had.

"And there aren't many spells our Kari can't do." said Hagrid making Kari blush.

"It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron, "Dirty blood you see. Common blood, it's mad. Most wizards are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married muggles we would have died out." He retched and ducked out of sight again.

"Well I don't blame you for trying to curse him, but it might be a good thing yer wand back fired. 'Suspect Lucius Malfoy would've had something to say up ter school if yer'd cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble."

"That's something I was wondering about, how could Lucius Malfoy have afforded seven Nimbus 2001s when Kaiba bankrupted him?" Hermione asked.

"Kaiba did what?" Hagrid asked, shocked, "The Malfoy's are very rich, they will have hidden assets that outsiders could never reach, Seto could have tried to bankrupt him, but I doubt it would be easy."

Kari looked at Hagrid, Hagrid got to call him Seto, but that was probably because of the dragon last year. "That's not going to stop Kaiba from trying."

"But it might take him a while longer than the week you were predicting, Kari." Ron said, coming up for air again.

"Ok, should we take bets on when Malfoy will finally be properly bankrupt? I'm betting the week before Halloween." Yami laughed. "I mean, we should get the whole school involved."

"Alright, I bet two weeks before Christmas, because Kaiba'll want to be able to concentrate on the Christmas rush…" Kari trailed off, "I've gotta go!" She dashed out.

"What was that about?" Joey asked Ombre, who sighed.

"She forgot she was supposed to see Professor McGonagall today."

"Why?" Joey asked.

"Because." Ombre replied.

"Why?"

"BECAUSE!" Ombre shouted, silencing Joey and making everyone look at her. She crossed her arms and glared at Joey, "It's not my secret to tell, so I'm not telling. And don't even think about using the Millennium Eye to read either of our minds, Joseph Wheeler!" Joey tried to look innocent and failed, as he'd been reaching towards Yami's bag to see if it was in there.

"Speaking of…" Yami took the Puzzle off and passed it to Yugi, who'd left it behind so he didn't have to wake Yami up when he'd gone out to tryouts. Yugi smiled and put it on. Ombre reached into her robes and realised she still had the Orb.

They were there for a couple of hours but as lunch time neared they headed back towards the castle but had only taken a couple of steps into the Entrance Hall when Professor McGonagall swooped on them. Kari trailing behind, looking like she was thinking about a lot of things at once. "There you are, Potter, Weasley, Wheeler." The Professor said, looking sternly at them, "All three of you will do your detentions tonight."

"What're we doing?" Joey asked, wondering what was up with Kari.

"You, Mr Wheeler, and you Mr Weasley will be polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr Filch, without magic, using only elbow grease."

Ron and Joey looked worried. Mr Filch was hated by the students for a good reason, "And you Mr Potter, will be helping Professor Lockheart answer his fanmail."

"Can't I help in the trophy room instead?" Harry asked desperately.

"Certainly not. Eight o'clock sharp, all of you. Miss Ironhide, you'll meet me again at 2 pm tomorrow."

"Yes Professor McGonagall." Kari replied and the Professor let them go into the great hall.

"Alright spill it! Why do you have to see Professor McGonagall everyday?" Joey asked as Kari stuffed her face full of food, Kari refused to answer, swallowing her food and eating some more, Ombre handed her back the Millennium Orb. Harry and Ron were discussing their detentions while Hermione was wearing a look that clearly said well-you-did-break-the-rules.

"Kari tell, or I'm telling Kaiba you have a crush on him!"

"I DO NOT!" Kari growled.

"But he doesn't know that, so spill it!"

Ombre smiled, "It's not like Kaiba would believe anything Joey told him…"

"Joey, if I promise to tell, will you stop begging me?"

Joey nodded, "I promise."

"Then I promise I'll tell you, after Christmas!"

"That's not fair," Joey got up and started heading over to the Ravenclaw table.

"Uh oh!" Ombre growled.

"Joey Wheeler!" Kari yelled, "You promised! Are you going to break your word?" Joey continued to walk, not even hesitating. She pulled out her wand, "Petrificus Totalus!" Joey fell over, the full body bind in effect.

"Kari!" Yami yelled at her.

"He gave me no choice." Kari stormed, and stomped out of the Great Hall. "There's no ice around here!" Ombre could hear her growl as she stormed out. Ombre quickly followed, while Yugi and Hermione rushed over to Joey and Hermione did the counter-curse.

"Well you did promise." Hermione said, earning her a glare from Joey before he stormed out. Yugi sighed and followed. "What did I do?" Hermione asked herself.

Ombre chased her hikari up to their dorms in the Gryffindor tower and then back down to the lake. Where Kari took her robes off, revealing her scarlet swimming costume and dived in without stopping to test the water. "Kari!" Ombre yelled, fearful for her hikari when she didn't surface right away.

"What?" Kari asked, surfacing and swimming out a bit further.

"Do you always wear your swimming costume under your uniform?" Ombre asked, trying to act calm. Kari looked at her oddly.

"Well it is a weekend." Kari said, "Come and join me, the water is fine!" Ombre shook her head violently. "Why not?"

"I… I…" Ombre couldn't say it. Kari swam over to the side of the lake.

"You can't swim?" Kari asked, Ombre shook her head, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I… it never came up… I used to live in a desert you know, very little water, and it was too dangerous to swim in the Nile." Ombre said, getting defensive as Kari looked at her sadly.

"I would have taught you over the summer." Kari said sadly.

"Do you even have a swimming costume?" Ombre shook her head. "Liar, I saw you packing it. I only just remembered."

"I thought…"

"I'd laugh? Go get you swimming costume and I'll teach you not to drown at least, ok?"

"Ummm."

"Now Ombre."

"Ok." Ombre said quietly and went off to get her swimming costume.

" _Dark Magician Girl?"_

_What is it?_

" _Can you ask the Dark Magician if Yami can swim?"_

_Why?_

" _Please."_

 _Ok._ Silence, and Kari took a few strokes out into the lake, and then, _He has no idea._

" _What if Yami can? Or that Yami has no idea?"_

_If the Pharaoh can._

" _Tell him to tell Yami, if he doesn't get down here for swimming lessons, I'll drown him, Ok?"_ Kari thought for a moment, _"Um, Dark Magician Girl, do you have a name?"_

_Mana, my name is Mana._

" _Would you prefer I called you Mana, rather than Dark Magician Girl?"_

Mana giggled, _Are you asking permission to use my name? I doubt it holds any deep dark secrets, go ahead. By the way the Pharaoh is hiding in the Common Room._

" _I'll get him out here somehow, do the other Duel Monsters have names?"_

_Well, the Dark Magician's name is Mahado, Blue Eyes White Dragon is Kisara, and yes she is a girl…um…The Blue Eyes White Chick is called Geki, the Emerald Dragon has a name, Becca was prompted, it's Minneola, Red Eyes Black is Tobias, while Red Eyes Darkness is Shadowfae, while Boh is the fuzzball, oh I just thought of an idea of how to get the Pharaoh down here._

" _How?"_

_Enlist Yugi's help._

" _Go on…"_

Yugi's head shot up, Boh was talking to him, Yugi had to suppress a smile while he tried to convince his yami to go down for swimming lessons, having seen Ombre going down for hers. "Yami, you do realise Kaiba can swim, don't you? And Kari is organising races for next month."

"Yeah, but Kaiba likes flying too." Yami said, acting disinterested, but he wasn't, Kaiba had made his life hell all summer over Yami's stupid fear of flying, there was no way he wanted to lose to Kaiba, "But Yugi, it's September, it's cold outside!"

"Then get Kari to put a warming spell on you, she must have mastered it since she was swimming the moment the ice melted too much to skate on, last January."

 _My Pharaoh, the Princess says to warn you that if she has to send Shadowfae to get you, her hikari has free reign on what she does to you._ Yami sighed, at the Dark Magician's, Mahado's, words, "Fine. Can I borrow some swimming trunks please."

"Who's going swimming?" Joey asked, entering the Common Room.

"Kari's going to give Yami lessons." Yugi said as Yami went up to their dorm.

"This I gotta see." Joey laughed and raced upstairs. Yugi had to almost literally drag Yami to the lake side, where Kari was teaching Ombre how to keep her head above the water.

"So the mighty Pharaoh decided to grace us with his presence after all!" Kari said in mock surprise, "Come on Yami, surely you can't be afraid of a little water!"

"I am not, and have never been, afraid of mere water." Kari laughed.

"Then why did it take seven, sorry eight of us to get you down here?" Kari corrected herself when she saw Joey.

"It's not like I'll ever need to know how to swim…" Yami began.

Kari glared as Joey started counting down the times they had nearly drowned.

"Lets see, there was the way to Duellist Kingdom, then there was during Rich-boy's first tournament…" Yami glared at him "And when the blimp nearly crashed and then there was when we only just got off the island in time before it blew up…" Joey trailed off when he saw the look on Yami's face.

"I'm right aren't I? You don't like water!" Ombre had to wonder how her hikari was getting away with winding Yami up without ending up in the Shadow Realm, she tried a different tactic.

"What are you going to do if Yugi ever gets into trouble in the water? Hope someone's around that can save him?" As they were talking, Ombre and Kari had left the water and they, Yugi and Joey, were between him and everything else bar the water.

"That's not fair."

"Who said I had to play fair?" Kari asked, since he still wasn't co-operating Yugi and Joey grabbed him and dragged him into the water. Kari waved her wand and water fell over all three boys, Yami, Yugi and Joey.

"IT'S COLD!" Yami yelled, making Kari laugh.

"It's not cold, this is warm!"

"You're crazy!"

"And you're afraid of flying and swimming." Yami growled at her but didn't have anything clever to use as a reply. Kari smirked, she'd won the battle, and she was determined to win the war. "It's not that hard, honest."

They spent the afternoon teaching Ombre and Yami how to swim, returning to the Gryffindor Common Room in time to get dry and for Joey to go for his detention.

Harry was filling out envelopes for Lockheart's fan mail replies when he heard a voice, **_"Come… Come to me… Let me rip you… Let me tear you… Let me kill you…"_**

"What?" Harry gasped. Lockheart realised what the time was, and let Harry go. He ran down the halls but there was no sign of the voice. Ron and Joey didn't get back for another couple of hours, by which time Harry had already woken their dorm. Harry explained what he'd heard, and Joey confirmed that the dragons said there was something moving around Hogwarts that spoke a language very similar to their own, because Red Eyes had warned him not to leave the trophy room.

"And Lockheart couldn't hear it?" Asked Ron, Harry shook his head, "And yet you and the dragons could, d'you think he was lying? But I don't get it, to get into your room, someone or something invisible would have to have opened the door get close enough for you to hear it."

"I know," Harry said as they led back to go back to sleep, "I don't get it either."


	6. Dragon Eggs and a Foolish Mistake

October came around and the cold and damp that came with it put halt to Kari's swimming lessons for the yamis. Not that it was easy to get Yami down to the lake to swim, he had something against water and she had no idea what. Probably the same thing he had against flying, as it was, a week before Halloween, Kaiba came up to the Gryffindor table and spoke to the group quietly. "Kari, I heard about Malfoy insulting you at the Gryffindor Quidditch trials, don't worry, he won't be insulting you any longer." Kaiba turned away from the table.

"Yes!" Yami crowed. Kaiba turned around.

"What was that about?" Yami didn't say anything and tried to look innocent, something he couldn't quite pull off. However Joey landed him in trouble by saying.

"Ok Yami, you win the bet."

"You were betting on me?" Kaiba growled. He snorted, "At least you had the decency to win." And with that he turned and went back to the Ravenclaw table.

Later on that day, they were sat up in the Gryffindor Common Room when they heard something that made them stop what ever they were doing.

"WHEELER!" Kaiba yelled at the top of his voice, the sound audible at the highest point of the castle. Joey gulped.

"What have I done this time?" Yami and the Dark Magician gave him a sympathetic look, Kaiba had been worse towards Joey since the little accident when Red Eyes and Blue Eyes had been… interested in each other. "Should I go and find out?"

"Do you value your life?" Ombre asked, flipping a card face up and annoying Kari with a Mystical Space Typhoon to blast away Kari's Magic Cylinder, Kari's Dark Magician Girl blew a raspberry at Ombre, making Kari laugh.

"Yes…"

"Then I wouldn't if I were you."

Joey was chased around the castle by Kaiba all day, from the moment he left the Gryffindor Common Room to go to class right up until he lost him at dinner. He went to sit down with the others at the Gryffindor table but wasn't prepared for Kaiba to grab him and drag him to the Ravenclaw Common Room. Once there Kaiba dumped him next to the fireplace and scowled at him.

"What?"

"Look at what your dragon did to my Blue Eyes!" Kaiba growled, pointing an accusing finger at the five eggs sat in the flames, three silver eggs, one white one and one black one.

Joey gulped, "My Red Eyes Black? And your Blue Eyes White? I wonder what the hatchlings will look like…" Joey wondered, forgetting for a moment how angry Kaiba was.

Kaiba shook him, "If you ever let your dragon anywhere near mine again I'll… I'll"

"Wake up in the same bed as me again?" At that point Kaiba went bright red, and literally chucked Joey out the Common Room.

"I want at least one of those eggs Rich-Boy!" Joey yelled after him. Kaiba's only response was to slam the door behind the portrait.

* * *

Despite the regular rain and the arrival of the eggs, which had the entire castle up in arms, Oliver Wood's determination and enthusiasm for regular training sessions wasn't dampened, which was why Harry and Yugi were to be found, late one Saturday afternoon, a few days before Halloween, returning to the Gryffindor Common Room, drenched head to toe and splattered with mud.

As they squelched along the corridor, Yugi was shivering with the cold, it hadn't been a good practise, Fred and George had seen the Slytherin's practising, their new brooms had them looking like green blurs, shooting through the air like jump jets. Yugi had found himself wishing that Kaiba had worked quicker to bankrupt the Malfoys, and his friends knew he barely ever thought ill of anyone.

They were walking along a deserted corridor when they walked into someone who was as preoccupied as they were, Nearly Headless Nick was staring out of a window muttering under his breath, "…don't fulfil their requirements… half an inch… if that…"

"Hello, Nick." Said Harry, as both boys stopped to talk to the ghost.

"Hello, hello." Said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking around, "You look troubled young Potter, Muto." He said, folding up a transparent letter.

"So do you." Yugi said.

"Ah, a matter of no importance, it's not as though I really wanted to join… thought I'd apply… but apparently I 'don't fulfil requirements'." In spite of his airy tone there was a bitter look on his face. "But you would think, wouldn't you, getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?"

"Oh yes." Yugi and Harry said, who were obviously supposed to agree.

"I mean. No one wishes more then I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean it would have saved a great deal of pain and ridicule, However…" Nick shook the letter back open furiously and began to read… "We can only accept huntsmen who's heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head Juggling and Head Polo. It is with greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfil out requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore." Fuming, Nick put the letter away, "Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on Harry, Yugi! Most people would think that's good and beheaded, but not enough for Sir Properly-Decapitaited Podmore!"

Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, "So what's bothering you? Anything I can help with?"

"No," Harry said, "Unless you know where we can get 7 free Nimbus 2001s for our match against Sly…" Harry's sentence was drowned out by a high pitched mewing from around Yugi's ankles. Yugi looked down and found himself looking into the amber eyes of Miss Norris, the skeletal grey cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless war against the students.

"You'd better get out of here," said Nick quickly, "Filch is in a bad mood. He's got the flu and the dragons all caused a mess in the Great Hall earlier when Yami and your Ravenclaw friend had a blazing row there earlier, Yugi." Yugi grimaced, that had to be Kaiba, Yami didn't normally have rows with students, unless you included Bakura. "He's been cleaning all morning and if he catches you two dripping mud everywhere…"

"Right." Harry said, as Yugi backed away from the accusing stare of the cat, but not quickly enough as Filch, as though summoned to the spot by the power that linked him and his cat, Yugi wondered if it was similar to the links to their Duel Monsters, appeared, gasping for breath, looking around for the rule breaker.

"Filth!" He shouted, as he pointed at the puddle that had accumulated around Yugi and Harry's Quidditch robes, "Mess and muck everywhere! I've had enough of it! Follow me Potter! You too Muto!" The two of them waved a gloomy goodbye to Nearly Headless Nick and followed Filch. Once they were sat in Filch's office, Yugi zoned out, holding the Millennium Puzzle which was hidden under his Quidditch robes.

' _Yami? What did you and Kaiba fight about earlier?'_

" _I don't want to talk about it. Why aren't you back yet?"_

' _Me and Harry got into trouble with Filch, but don't change the subject…'_

" _It's not important."_ Yugi was distracted by a loud bang on the ceiling off the office.

"PEEVES!" Filch roared and rushed out of the office. Yugi tried to get Yami to talk to him but found the link closed at Yami's end as Harry looked at a letter on the desk. Harry quickly threw the letter on the desk as the door reopened. Filch accused them of reading his letter, and Yugi honestly denied reading it to cover up for Harry. He kicked them out of his office.

Amazed at their luck, they sped up to the Common Room, stopping to gasp for breath just outside their Common Room, "Harry! Yugi! Did it work?" Nearly Headless Nick asked. "I persuaded Peeves to drop an old cabinet from a height, above Filch's office." Nick said eagerly, "Thought it might distract him…"

"That was you?" Harry said gratefully, "Yes, it worked, we didn't even get detention. Thanks Nick!"

Nick was still holding the rejection letter. "I wish there was something we could do for you about the Headless Hunt." Yugi said.

"But there is something you could do for me," Nick said excitedly, "Yugi… Harry… would it be asking too much… but no, you wouldn't want to…"

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"This year is my five hundredth deathday." Said Nick drawing himself up and looking dignified.

"Oh," Said Harry, unsure whether they should look sorry or happy about this, "Right."

"I'm holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honer if you will attend, I mean I know Yami and Ombre probably wouldn't want to come but the whole group is invited too."

"I'll come." Harry said quickly, Yugi wasn't too sure, why would you want to celebrate the day you died? Yami and Ombre couldn't even remember the day they'd died, well they hadn't really, their bodies had died but their spirits had lived on inside the Millennium Items. Nick was looking at him expectantly.

"Count me in." Yugi said quickly. Even if Yami wouldn't want to go, Yugi owed Nick, and it was the least he could do to go to his party.

"My dear boys, Harry Potter and Yugi Muto at my Deathday Party! And…" He hesitated, looking excited, "Could you mention to Sir Patrick how frightening you find me?"

"Of… of course." Said Harry, Nick beamed at him.

"A Deathday Party?" said Hermione keenly, when the two boys had changed at last and joined the group in the Common Room. "I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those – it'll be fascinating."

Ombre and Yami were quiet, as Ron spoke, "Who would want to celebrate the day they died? It sounds dead depressing to me." Yugi poked Yami who ignored him. Yugi was hurt, Yami never ignored him, even when they'd had a disagreement. "Just leave me alone, Yugi." Yami growled and got up and went up to the dorm, leaving Yugi confused, and upset.

Joey watched him go, "It's not you Yugi." He said, "Kaiba and him had a huge fight in the Great Hall, Kaiba pretty much accused him of being a coward, and an unworthy guardian for you since he's afraid to fly even in clear weather and you were up in the air today during a storm. Yami's been in a foul mood ever since."

"Nearly Headless Nick said Yami and Kaiba had had a fight but didn't tell us what about, other then it upset the dragons." Harry said, having watched Yami storm off.

"The dragons, even Kaiba's Blue Eyes White were annoyed with Kaiba's comments; they think that Yami doesn't have to fly because they can protect Yugi while he's flying. Kaiba ended up getting blasted by Joey's Red Eyes Black and retreating out the door." Kari continued from where Joey left off.

' _Yami, please…'_ Yugi trailed off, the link was still closed, Yami was still blocking him. Yugi looked at the group, frustrated. "Okay gang, ideas for getting Yami over his fear of flying."

"We need to prove to Yami that he's still a fit guardian for you, so what if we pretend to kidnap you, Yuge, and put you some place high?" Joey asked. "Somewhere where you could only get by flying."

"That's a silly idea, how about we just chuck Yami out a window?" Ron asked.

"That's sillier still, how about…" Yugi listened as the ideas got progressively worse. No one noticed when Yami came back down until he opened the mind link and Yugi sensed him. "Guys!" Yugi called, pointing, the group shut up immediately as he came over.

"Yugi… I'm sorry about earlier, it wasn't your fault, I had no reason to be angry at you." Yami said, looking down. "What were you talking about…?" He asked, looking at the guilty faces around the group.

"Nothing in particular, I know you didn't want us to tell Yugi about the fight you had with Kaiba, but we did, because he was upset because you had a go at him." Joey said, telling a half truth.

"And?" Yami said, when Yugi wouldn't look him in the eyes.

"They were plotting how to get rid of your silly fear of heights." Hermione said.

Yami stiffened, slamming the link shut with a bang similar in volume to the exploding Kuriboh, "It's not a fear of height!" He almost shouted, getting angry all over again.

Yugi visibly winced against the anger he sensed even with the link closed. "Then what is it?" He asked quietly.

"Nothing!" Yami exploded, and stormed off again, leaving Yugi upset.

Joey growled, "I'm gunna knock some sense into him!" He said, getting to his feet and following the Pharaoh out of the Common Room.

"Joey…!" Yugi called after him and then sighed.

"I think Joey had a good idea in the first place, he'd have to get over his fear if Yugi was in trouble." Ombre said, bringing the conversation back to the topic.

"YAMI!" Joey yelled, the Pharaoh stopped, turned and growled at him.

"Leave me alone!" Yami shouted, the empty hallway echoing his words.

"No!" Joey shouted, closing the distance between them, "Not until you explain why you can't even watch Yugi fly!"

"No!" Yami shouted, and turned to go.

Joey lashed out with his fist, catching Yami in the jaw. Yami got up, growling, and pounced on Joey, the two ending up wrestling with each other and only stopping when Joey had Yami pinned. "Now tell me what's wrong, bud." Joey said, as Yami finally stopped growling at him.

Yami was shaking and closed his eyes to avoid looking into Joey's, "My little sister died, I only just remembered her, and my only memory of her is when she crashed. Harry's downward dive during the first flying lesson must have awakened the memory, because I got it back at the same time. I don't want to lose Yugi like that!" Joey nodded in understanding. "Every time I see anyone flying, I see my little sister on the back of her dragon."

His eyes shot open as he realised he'd lost the link with Yugi almost completely, meaning Yugi had either taken the Puzzle off, or someone had taken it from him. But what danger could he have been in, in the Gryffindor Common Room? Unless he'd followed Yami out. Yami growled at himself, if he hadn't slammed the link shut he'd of known if Yugi was in trouble. "Yugi…" He whispered, Joey looked startled and let him up.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Yami rushed back towards the Common Room, Joey close behind.


	7. We Fooled You and Nick's Deathday Party

They reached the Gryffindor Common Room and stopped suddenly, the entire house were out cold, it looked like they'd been hit by a well planned surprise attack, with some people having managed to draw their wands while others had been hit with whatever spell it was that had rendered them unconscious before they'd had a chance to move. Almost everyone was on the floor, or in a chair, except… there was someone missing… Yami looked around wildly, "Where's Yugi?"

Joey shook Kari and the girl came round slowly, "What happened?"

She looked at him groggily, "Someone attacked us without warning, from the Portrait hole."

"Where's Yugi?" Yami asked again, directing it towards Kari. _'Dark Magician! Where's Yugi?'_

Kari looked around, "He was here, with us, they must have grabbed him!" Kari groaned, her face creased with pain and she passed back out.

 _I'm not sure my Pharaoh, Boh can only just sense him._ Yami growled. "Joey, ask Red Eyes!"

' _Tobias, where have the attackers taken Yugi?'_ No reply. "I don't know, I can't get an answer from Tobias."

"He can't be too far." Yami growled, "He's still around the castle somewhere." Joey tried to think where someone would have taken Yugi.

"Hadn't we better tell a Professor?"

Yami turned on him, anger glinting dangerously in his eyes. "I don't think whoever did this is coming back anytime soon, while Yugi might be in real danger NOW!" Joey nodded.

"Alright, Gryffindor house will be safe enough here, we'd better find Yugi."

Yami nodded and rushed back out the Common Room, Joey looked around and noticed that there were two others missing, Fred and George Weasley, but they might have gone up to their dorm and missed it. Joey followed Yami out.

Yami stopped running down the stairs as a paper bird flew into his hands and unfolded itself. It was a note, it said, "He's on the roof."

Yami froze. "What's wrong?" Joey asked, as Yami wheeled back round and raced back to the Common Room and up to the dorm, grabbing Yugi's broomstick before heading over to the window. Yami passed him the note and then stared at the evil broomstick. Yami opened to window and refused to look down as he mounted the broomstick. "Are you Ok, man?" Joey asked as Yami was about to take off.

Yami wasn't sure but didn't have time to think about it, Yugi was in trouble and that was all there was too it. "No, but here I go anyway." He took off into the rain and Joey rushed down to the Common Room, to see if he could wake up some of the others.

"Yugi?" Yami called, "Yugi?" He traced Yugi to the tallest tower's roof, and flew up there, he saw two figures mount broomsticks as he came level with the tower and fly off. Yami growled; one of them was holding something gold. Yami chased him and the figure dropped the Puzzle, which Yami dived to catch it, succeeding, and surprising himself in the process, but it meant the figure he was chasing got away.

He turned his attention back to the tower and landed on the roof of it, rushing over to Yugi, who, as Yami had feared, was out cold. Yami put the Puzzle on him, allowing him to open the mind link, though there was no response at the other end. It felt, down the link, like Yugi had been drugged, with some sort of potion. He shook his hikari gently, "Yugi, you're safe now, come on, wake up…"

* * *

"What do you mean it was a trick?" Joey yelled, as Harry and Ron tried to explain. Yami was still flying out there, trying to find Yugi on one of the roofs.

"The only one who's really out cold is Yugi, since Yami's bond with him would tell him if Yugi was pretending, this was your idea," Kari said, "And it worked didn't it?" Joey nodded, he just wished he'd been in on it.

"You scared me half to death!" He yelled, as Fred and George rushed down from the dorms.

"Yami's found Yugi, it'll take him about ten minutes to wake Yugi, so…" George looked out the window, "They're going to be soaked when they come in."

"Uh oh…" Kari gasped, Mana, the Dark Magician Girl, had just told her something.

"What?"

"Yami's bringing Yugi in while he's still out cold, everyone places!"

Yami flew in through the open Common Room window. Inside Joey, Fred and George were 'waking everyone up.' Yami landed next to the fire, shivering, while holding Yugi tightly so he wouldn't fall off the broom. "Joey! Is everyone ok?" He asked, dismounting and lying Yugi down. Joey smiled and nodded as Yugi's eyes groggily opened, and the last of the Gryffindors 'woke up.' "We still have to find out who did this." Yami said loudly, helping Yugi to his feet.

Everyone looked around guiltily and Yami got suspicious, what didn't help the twins was that a small, ¾ full bottle, labelled 'Sleeping Potion', rolled out from under their robes. Yami glared at them, and they gulped. "But you got to admit it worked!" They said in unison. Yami kept glaring at them, Yugi was shivering from the wet robes and clothes. "And that was the best catch I've seen anyone not a pro do in years, apart from Harry!"

"It was you two on the roof, wasn't it?" He growled, through the praise was welcome.

"He was good?" Wood asked, always eager to talk about Quidditch.

"He caught the Millennium Puzzle, in midair, without it breaking, he was better then Jenny Lumox, sorry Jen…" George said the last to the team's reserve Seeker.

"I am not playing Quidditch!" Yami growled.

"But I heard Kaiba got on the Ravenclaw team, he's playing… what was it?" Harry said, thinking, "Chaser, that was it."

"Well… maybe…" Yami said, still slightly angry.

"Good, we'll try you out tomorrow, and if you're any good, we'll have two reserve Seekers, since you seem to get into as much trouble as Harry." Oliver Wood said.

Yami nodded and turned to Yugi, "Are you really alright?"

Yugi yawned, "I'm fine, really. Just sleepy," He shivered, "And cold." Yami led Yugi upstairs, to their dorm, where they got changed into warm, dry clothes.

By the time they got back down the Common Room was in full party mode, having successfully pulled off the biggest trick ever played on a member of their own house and having gotten Yami to fly.

It continued till early in the morning, when Professor McGonagall came in and demanded to know why they were all out of bed. Since no one wanted to tell her why they were having a party, it quietly dissolved under her watchful gaze until everyone had returned to their dorms.

" _You know,"_ Yami said down the mind link to Yugi, who was curled up in bed with his Kuriboh, _"You had me really worried, I thought something bad had seriously happened to you, I should have thought it was a trick, after all only teachers and Gryffindor students know the password. I'm just glad you're Ok."_

' _Sorry Yami, but we couldn't think of a better way, they came up with lots of different ways, Ron said to try throwing you out a window, and then Gred and Forge overheard and they offered to help, and before long the whole of Gryffindor house was in on it. It's probably a good thing because you would have been suspicious if it had just been the group out cold.'_ Yugi's mental voice was sleepy, and most unusually, slightly difficult understand; the full effects of the potion weren't completely out of Yugi's system.

" _Ron said what?"_ Yami put it down to the potion and assumed he'd heard Yugi wrong, _"You're right though, after you lot were talking in the Common Room I wouldn't have trusted it, but I was scared out of my mind when the link went almost completely dead, I know you'd never give up the Puzzle willingly."_

' _That was their idea, I was asleep by then, taking and dropping the Puzzle was not my idea. Yami?'_

" _Yes?"_

' _Are… are you going… going to tell me…'_ Yugi trailed off and Yami closed his eyes and sensed Yugi had fallen asleep, he smiled and rolled over so his was facing his hikari's bed, he'd tell Yugi what had scared him about flying when Yugi was awake enough to understand him.

* * *

By the time Halloween arrived, Harry was regretting his rash promise to go to the Deathday Party. The rest of the school were anticipating their Halloween feast, and rumours flew around about the entertainment.

"A promise is a promise." Hermione told Harry bossily. "Both you and Yugi said you'd got to the party."

Yami had decided to go with Yugi, but Ombre wasn't too happy about going at all, Kari or no Kari, but didn't want to go to the Halloween feast on her own, so at seven o'clock Ombre followed them down to the dungeons, sulking the entire way. The corridor was lined with black taper candles, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step, and Harry pulled his robes in around him, he heard what sounded like fingernails against a blackboard.

"Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered. They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick, stood by a doorway, hung with black drapes.

"My dear friends, welcome, welcome, so pleased you could come. Yami, Ombre, it is an honer, I wasn't expecting either of you." He swept off his hat and bowed them inside.

It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of silver, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Joey made their way over to the food table, where they ended up getting caught up in one of Peeve's cruel jokes. Yami, Yugi, Joey, Kari and Ombre made their way around the room, trying to avoid walking through anyone. The four joined them, "You do not want to eat that!" Joey murmured, "If we ate it, it would probably make us ill."

"Are you having fun?" Nick asked, scaring Joey, as Nick'd come up behind him silently.

"Oh yes." Joey said, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

"I'd better go warn the orchestra that my speech is soon…" in that moment the band stopped playing and a hunting horn sounded. "Oh here we go." Nick said bitterly. Through one of the dungeon walls, burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by headless horsemen. The assembly of ghosts clapped and Harry stopped himself from clapping at the look on Nick's face.

Yami and Ombre looked at each other, these were the members of the Headless Hunt that Nick wanted to join? They weren't that impressive. Yugi politely clapped while Joey looked really impressed, though Kari wasn't sure what to make of it.

The horses stopped in the middle of the dance floor, a large ghost at the front, his bearded head held under his arm, blowing the horn. He got down, put his head on his shoulders and seemed to gather his courage before coming over and speaking with Yami. Yami saw this and smiled, apparently seniority was important to ghosts, and not many ghost stayed coherent after five thousand years and the Hunt's Master seemed amazed by him and Ombre.

"Pharaoh." Sir Patrick said, giving a slight nod, probably to stop his head falling off, rather then from a lack of respect.

Yami began his campaign, "You know, Sir Nick is a good friend of mine, I would appreciate it if you reconsidered his application." The Hunt's Master looked flustered.

"While you see, Nick isn't really suitable…" He began but Yami interrupted him.

"I would consider it a favour if you did."

"Well, we'll see, I'm sure there are some activities he could take part in, just as an… umm… auxiliary member, I'm sure of it, but I'll have to put it up for discussion with the rest of the hunt… I'm sure you understand."

Yami nodded, "Yes, I understand, I'm sure it won't be a problem." Sir Patrick made his way across the room, Nearly Headless Nick was looking at Yami, lost for words. "I hope this is enough to repay you for what you did for Yugi a few days ago, I'm sure they won't deny my request."

"More than enough…" Nick said, beaming, "Thank you."

Yugi tugged on Yami's sleeve, his breath coming out as clouds of steam, "Come on, the others are all hungry." Yami nodded, following his hikari out into the hall where the others were waiting. They started walking along the corridor, and about half way along both Harry and Joey jumped, Harry started to run but Joey grabbed him, "Tobias says not to go that way." Ombre's head shot up.

"Shadowfae agrees."

Harry looked at them, panicking slightly, "But it's going to kill someone!" Joey paled and let go.

"Kill?" Yugi said, and the gang came to a mutual decision and ran after the voice, trying to stop an attempted murder. They hurtled down a bunch of corridors and around a corner and Harry stopped, causing Joey and Ron to run into him, sending them sprawling to the floor.

"Ouch!" Joey complained, as he untangled himself.

"Guys…" Yugi said, pointing down the corridor, "Look." Something was shining on the wall ahead, foot high words daubed on the walls between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.

**_THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED!_ **

**_ENEMIES OF THE HIER, BEWARE!_ **

"What's that thing… hanging underneath?" Ron asked, his voice quivering slightly. Yami pushed Yugi behind him as they made their way forward, towards the large puddle of water on the floor beneath the words. They realised what it was almost immediately, once they could see it, and Yugi and Harry jumped back with a splash.

Mrs Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was as stiff as a board and her eyes were wide and staring. For a few seconds they didn't, or couldn't move, then Ron spoke.

"We should get out of here."

"Shouldn't we try to help?" Harry began awkwardly.

"Ron's right, we don't want to be found here." Yami said, turning to lead Yugi away, but it was too late, a distant rumble told them the feast had kicked out and soon the corridor was full of students, who stopped the moment they saw the hanging cat and the words. Then a voice shouted through the crowd.

"Enemies of the heir beware! You'll be next Mudbloods!" It was Draco Malfoy, his cold eyes alive, his usually pale face flushed as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.


	8. The Writing on the Wall

"What's going on here? What's going on?" Attracted no doubt, by Malfoy's shout, Argus Filch came shouldering his way through the crowd. Then he saw Mrs Norris and fell back, clutching his face in terror. "My cat! My cat, what's happened to my cat?" His eyes fell on Harry, "You! You've murdered my cat! You killed my cat! I'll kill you! I'll…" He screeched, walking towards the boy, who was shoved backwards behind the gang, who stood protectively between Harry and the caretaker.

"ARGUS!" Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, followed by a number of teachers. In seconds he had swept past the gang and detached Mrs Norris from the wall bracket. "Come with me Argus," he said to Filch, "You too, Mr Potter, and I think your friends had better come too." The gang shared glances, they were in trouble, quick think up a plan.

 _Finally,_ thought Joey, _This telething might actually get them out of trouble instead of into more of it,_ as the duel monsters carried messages around the group, leaving only Harry, Ron and Hermione out.

Lockheart stepped forward eagerly, "My office is nearest, Headmaster, just upstairs, it should fit everyone in nicely, please feel free…" Unfortunately, the only good idea they could come up with was one of Joey's, which they agreed on as they entered Lockheart's office.

The group stayed together at the back of the office while the Professors examined Mrs Norris carefully, "It was defiantly a curse that killed her." Lockheart was saying, as the group finalised their plan.

"She's not dead, Argus, but she has been petrified." Said Dumbledore, "But how, I cannot say."

"Ask him!" shrieked Filch, turning his tear stained face to Harry.

"Harry didn't do anything!" Yugi said, staring at Filch, who glared at him.

"If I might speak Headmaster," said Snape from the shadows, "The group may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time," Snape spoke, with a sneer, as though he doubted it, Yami didn't like Snape, he was sure anything he had to say wouldn't be good. "But there are a number of suspicious circumstances here. Why were they in the upstairs corridor at all? Why weren't they at the Halloween feast?"

Harry, Ron and Hermione spoke all at the same time, "We were at Nick's Deathday Party, there were hundreds of ghosts, they'll tell you we were there…"

"But why not join the feast afterwards?" Snape said, his eyes glittering in the candlelight, "Why go up to that corridor?"

"Because… because…" Harry said.

"Because the dragons heard something, Red Eyes Black and Red Eyes Darkness told Joey and Ombre that there was something here that shouldn't be, and we thought we'd check it out." Yami said, Snape's sharp gaze turned to him and Yami's piercing crimson eyes stared back at him in a silent contest of wills.

"Why didn't you think to get a teacher?" Snape asked, looking away from Yami. Yami smiled slightly.

"We didn't have time." Joey said, "The dragons said it what ever it was, was retreating, we thought we could catch it."

Snape's smiled, "I don't think Muto and Wheeler are not being entirely truthful," He said, his smirking gaze turning to Harry and Yugi, "I think it would it be a good idea, if certain members of the group were deprived of certain privileges until they are ready to tell us the full story. I feel that Potter and Muto should be taken off of the Gryffindor Quidditch team until they are ready to be honest."

"Really Severus," Said Professor McGonagall, "I see no reason to stop the boys playing Quidditch. The cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that the group has done anything wrong."

Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. Harry felt as though he was being x-rayed. "Innocent until proven guilty, Severus, this isn't ancient times." Snape looked furious, so did Filch.

"MY CAT HAS BEEN PETRIFIED! I WANT TO SEE SOME PUNISHMENT!" Filch roared.

"We will be able to cure her, Argus," Said Dumbledore patiently, "Madam Sproat has recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they reach full size, I will have a potion made up that will revive Mrs Norris." Lockheart butted in, saying he could whip up the potion in a heartbeat, and Snape had a go at him. There was an awkward pause and Dumbledore let the group go.

They went as fast as they could without actually running, turning into an empty classroom and closing the door behind them. "Talk about guilty until proven innocent." Joey growled, glaring at the closed door.

"An ancient concept for this modern age." Yami said, also glaring.

"He had some nerve, trying to ban Yugi and Harry from the Quidditch team." Kari growled, Harry looked at them.

"Do you think I should have told them about the voice I heard?"

"No," Ron said without hesitation, "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world."

"But the dragons heard it too." Ombre said looking at Ron, she'd caught his tone of voice.

"I know but you have to admit it's weird."

"I know it's weird, the whole thing is weird, what was the writing on the wall about? **_The chamber has been opened_** … what's that supposed to mean?"

"It sort of rings a bell, I think someone told me a story about a secret chamber in Hogwarts once, might've been Bill." Ron said, thinking. A clock chimed somewhere.

"It's midnight," Yami said listening to the chimes, "We should go, before Snape tries to frame Harry or Yugi for something else."

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs Norris. Filch was prowling the corridors and trying to give students detention for 'being happy' and 'breathing.'

Ginny was disturbed by the attack, they saw the little red head when Rebecca came over to glomp Yugi during one of the breaks. While Joey tried to prise the Ravenclaw girl off of Yugi, Ron explained that Ginny was a great cat-lover. "But you never really got a chance to know Mrs Norris. Honestly we're much better off without her. Stuff like this doesn't normally happen at Hogwarts." Ron assured Ginny as Joey was successful and Yugi hid behind Yami who laughed, earning himself a glare from Rebecca. "They'll catch the nutter who did it and have him out of here in no time, I just hope he gets to petrify Filch before he's expelled… I'm only joking!" Ron added hastily, as Ginny blanched.

The attack also had an effect on Hermione and Kari, who were living in the library or with their head stuck in one book or another. Nor could the group get an answer from them when they asked what they were doing.

' _Hikari.'_

" _Yes?"_

' _What're you doing?'_

" _Reading."_ Kari replied and was lost to her book again. Harry was the last to join them in the library, at Wednesday lunchtime. The group were sat in the back of the library measuring his history of magic homework.

"Eight inches short!" He growled, "Harry can I copy yours?"

"I'm inches short too. Ask Joey."

"You won't be able to read my handwriting. Ask Yugi."

"Not a chance, ask Yami."

"Ditto, ask Kari."

"If I'm not letting Ombre copy me then I'm not going to let you, ask Hermi… where'd she go?" Hermione emerged from between the bookshelves. She looked irritable and at last seemed ready to talk to them.

"All the copies of Hogwarts, A History are out and I couldn't fit it in my trunk with all of Lockheart's books."

"Why do you want it?" Joey asked, looking up from his essay.

"The same reason everyone else does, to read up on the legend of the Chamber of Secrets."

"What's that?"

"That's why we need it, neither of us can remember." Kari said, finishing her essay with a smile.

"Hermione, let me read your essay!" said Ron, desperately.

"No I won't, you've had ten days to finish it. If you're that desperate then ask Seto!" Hermione snapped, Kaiba was sat a few tables over, dividing his time between his laptop and an essay.

"Kaiba…" Ron said warily, walking over to the CEO's table as he finished with the essay and turned his focus completely to his laptop. Kaiba grunted at him. "Can I take a look at your essay?"

"Why?" Kaiba said, glaring at Ron.

"So I can compare it to my own." Ron said, trying to sound clever. Kaiba snorted.

"So you can copy it, no doubt, forget about it."

Ron growled, and packed up his stuff, storming out of the library, muttering something along the lines of 'They're all supposed to be my friends… won't even let me look…' Ron's voice trailed off as the bell rang. They packed up and headed to History of Magic, Kari and Ombre bickering as they went with Ombre's annoyed voice backed up with mental pleading.

History of Magic was most defiantly the most boring subject ever invented. Professor Binns, who taught it, was the only teacher who was a ghost. The most exciting thing that ever happened during his classes was his arrival through the blackboard. He was ancient and shrivelled, and more then once Ombre had jokingly stated that maybe it was a good thing she'd died young, if ghosts of old people looked like that. Professor Binns had simply got up from the armchair in front of the fire in the staffroom and left his body behind, Yami wasn't even sure if the Professor had noticed that he had died that day.

Today was no different from usual, Yugi, Yami, Kari and Ombre kept prodding each other awake, both mentally and physically, taking it in turns to take notes, while the rest of the class dozed off, occasionally waking up enough to write down a name or a date. He had been speaking for half an hour when something happened that never had before, Hermione had her hand up.

Professor Binns, glancing up during his deadly boring lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed. "Miss errr…"

"Granger. Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets." Said Hermione in a clear voice. The class woke up, excited. Professor Binns blinked.

"My subject is HISTORY of Magic, I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not legends." He started up on his lecture again but stuttered to a halt, Kari's hand was waving this time.

"Miss…"

"Ironhide, sir. Don't legends always have a basis in fact?"

Professor Binns looked at her in amazement, Harry was sure no student had ever dared to interrupt him before.

"Well, one could argue that, I suppose." He peered at Kari as though he'd never seen a student before. "However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale…" But the whole class was hanging on Professor Binns every word. He looked dimly at them all, every face to his, Yugi was certain he was thrown by such an unusual show of interest. "Oh very well," He said slowly, "Let me see… The Chamber of Secrets…

You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, no one is quite sure of the exact date, by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school houses are named after them, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."

He paused and gazed blearily around the room, before continuing, "For a few years, the founders worked together in harmony, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wanted to be more… selective… about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students with Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while there was a serious row on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school."

The Professor paused, looking like a wrinkled old tortoise.

"Reliable historical facts have told us that much, but these honest facts have been obscured by the legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin built a hidden chamber in the castle of which the other founders knew nothing. Slytherin, according to the legend, sealed the Chamber of Secrets, so none would be able to open it until his one true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber and unleash the horror within, using it to purge the school of all those who were 'unworthy' to study magic."

There was silence as he finished talking, but it wasn't a sleepy silence, everyone was alert, "The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course," He said, "Naturally, the whole school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible."

' _I bet he would have said that about the legends of Egypt too.'_ Yami thought a little too loudly, letting Yugi hear it, the hikari couldn't resist smiling. However the Professor returned to the subject and the class quickly fell into a tired stupor again.

"I always knew Salazar Slytherin was a twisted old loony." Ron said to the remaining group, Kari had dashed off to her extra lesson with Professor McGonagall, the others were going up to drop their bags off before tea, "But I never knew that he's started all this pure-blood nonsense. I wouldn't be in his house if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I'd have gotten the train straight home…"

Most of the group nodded but Harry and Yami were silent, their stomachs had dropped unpleasantly, neither had told the group that the Sorting Hat had considered putting them in Slytherin, they hadn't even told each other. The secret was kept to themselves, Yami hadn't even told Yugi.

They turned a corner and realised they were in the same corridor where they'd found Mrs Norris. "It wouldn't hurt to poke around." Harry said, dropping his bag. He carefully searched around, "Look scorch marks, here, here and here."

"Look at this, it's odd." Hermione said, twenty spiders were trying to fight their way though a small hole in the glass. "Have you ever seen spiders act like that?"

"No, have you Ron? Ron?" Yugi poked Ron, who jumped, the boy was pale.

"I… don't… like… spiders!" Ron said tersely.

"I never knew that, you've used them in potions lots of times." Yami said, looking at Ron in surprise.

"I don't mind them dead." Said Ron, who was carefully looking anywhere but the window, Harry was reminded of Yami and broomsticks, "I just don't like the way they move." Ron continued.

Harry quickly changed the subject, seeing Ron was getting annoyed with Hermione who was trying not to laugh. "Remember the water on the floor? Where'd that come from? Someone's mopped it up!"

"It was about here," Said Joey, striding past Ron, "Level with this door." He reached for the handle, then withdrew his hand as though he'd been burned.

"What's wrong?" Ombre asked.

"Can't go in there." Joey said, "Girl's toilet."

"Oh Joey," Hermione sighed, as Ombre laughed, "There won't be anyone in there. That's Moaning Myrtle's place. Come on, let's have a look."

The cubicles are flaking and scratched, the floor damp and the mirrors chipped. Hermione put her finger to her lips and walked over to the end cubicle, "Hello, Myrtle, how are you?"

The boys and Ombre went to go look. Moaning Myrtle was floating on a cistern, picking a spot on her nose, "Welcome your highnesses; however you and your male friends are not supposed to be in here, Pharaoh."

Harry was whispering to Hermione, and Myrtle got suspicious and threw a head fit, vanishing up a u-bend. The entire group left the bathroom, but Harry was just shutting the door when someone shouted, "RON!"

They turned and saw Percy Weasley, who was giving them all a disgusted look. Ron and Percy ended up in an argument, ending with Percy taking points from Gryffindor and Ron being extremely frustrated.

The gang chose seats as far as possible from Percy in the Common Room that night. Ron was so angry that he accidentally set his homework alight. Ron slammed his book shut, to his surprise Hermione followed suit and seconds later Kari slammed down her extra curricular Transfiguration work, looking more confused then he'd ever seen her.

"Who could it be though?" Hermione asked in a quiet voice as Kari stormed up to her dorm, Hermione sounded like she was continuing a conversation they'd been having. The Japanese students looked at her, confused. "Who's want all the squibs and Muggle-borns out of Hogwarts?"

"Let's think," Said Ron in mock puzzlement, "Who do we know that thinks Muggle-borns are scum?"

"If your talking about Malfoy…"

"And now Bakura." Yugi added.

"Of course I am, it wouldn't be Bakura, he's older then Salazar Slytherin, however Malfoy… well you heard him; "You'll be next Mudbloods!" Come on you just have to look at him to know it's him."

"Malfoy? The heir of Slytherin?" Ombre asked, as a large amount of French swearwords came from the dorms.

' _Everything alright?'_

" _Stupid bed is too close to the stupid door!"_

' _What's wrong with you?'_

" _Meh!"_ Kari stormed back down stairs, coming to sit down with them. _"Ouch."_

Ombre sighed, "You alright?"

"Fine." Kari growled, "What were you guys talking about?"

"Malfoy." Yugi said simply.

"They could've had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for centuries," Ron said, as the Duellist's monsters joined them, Yugi pulled Kuriboh onto his lap and Mana, the Dark Magician Girl, was hanging around the window, watching the dragons, while the Dark Magician, Mahado, was nowhere in sight. "Handing it down, Father to Son."

"Well…" Hermione said cautiously, "I suppose it's possible."

"But how do we prove it?" Yami said darkly.

"Well there might be a way." Hermione said, and explained about Polyjuice potion. "There's only one problem, we'd need a book called, _Moste Potente Potions_ from the Resticted Section of the library." They'd need a teacher's note to get it.

"Hard to see why we'd need the book really." Said Ron, "If we weren't going to make one of the potions."

"I think," Said Kari, "that if we made it sound as though we were just interested n the theory, we might stand a chance… I only have permission from Professor McGonagall to get out certain books, none that don't relate to my… extra curricular… studies."

"Oh, come on, no teacher's going to fall for that." Said Joey, "They'd have to be really thick!"


	9. The Rogue Bludger

Since the disastrous episode of the pixies, Professor Lockheart had not brought live creatures to class. Instead he read passages from his books to them and sometime re-enacted some of the more dramatic bits. He usually picked on Harry to help him with these reconstructions; so far Harry had been forced to play a simple Transylvanian villager who Lockheart had cured of a Bubbling Curse, a yeti with a head cold and a vampire who had been unable to eat anything but lettuce since Lockheart had dealt with him.

Harry was hauled to the front of the class during their very next Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, this time acting as a werewolf. If he hadn't needed to keep Lockheart in a good mood, he would have refused and let Yugi get the brunt of the embarrassment.

"Nice loud howl, Harry… exactly… and then, if you'll believe this I pounced… like this… slammed him to the floor… thus… with one hand, I managed to hold him down... with my other, I put my wand to his throat… and used my remaining strength to cast the incredibly complex Homorphus Charm… he let out a piteous moan… go on Harry… higher then that… good… his fur vanished… the fangs shrank… and he turned back into a man. Simple, yet effective… and another village will remember me forever as the hero who delivered them from the monthly threat of werewolf attacks." The bell rang and Lockheart got to his feet, letting Harry up. "Homework; compose a poem about my defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! Sighed copies of Magical Me to the author of the best one!"

The class began to leave. Harry returned to the back of the room, where the entire group were waiting. "Ready?" Harry muttered.

"Wait till everyone's gone…" Hermione said nervously, "All right."

She approached Lockheart's desk, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand. The group stood in an arc behind her. "Professor Lockheart… Sir?" Hermione said, looking around and smiling slightly at the support, "I wanted to check this out of the library. For background reading." She held out the piece of paper, "But the thing is, it's in the restricted section, so I need a teacher to sign for it. I'm sure it would help me understand what you said in Gadding with Ghouls about slow acting venoms…"

"Ah, Gadding with Ghouls!" Said Lockheart taking the note, as Kari realised the time and dashed off. "My favourite, now that Miss Ironhide is gone, I'm sure that I can say that no one will mind me giving the brightest student in the year a little extra help." Lockheart signed it, turning the conversation towards Quidditch, offering to help train Harry, Yugi and Yami. Yami snorted derisively as they left, the man had a bigger ego then Kaiba.

The group hurried off, arriving at the library as Ron and Hermione started bickering about Lockheart having (or not having) a brain. Once they had the book they barricaded themselves in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. They made a discovery though, they'd have to steal a lot of Snape's supplies. Hermione and Ombre checked the coast was clear once they'd settled on the Polyjuice Potion, and the fact it, unfortunately, would have to be Harry, Ron and Hermione who went in, as Bakura would sense the yamis or their hikaris straight away, even if they looked like someone else.

"You know…" Joey joked, as they made their way back up to the Common Room, "If one of you could just knock Malfoy off his broom tomorrow that would be a lot easier." Yami however went white, he'd forgotten about the Quidditch match tomorrow, and Yugi was going to have to play since Angelina was ill. Joey looked over and could have kicked himself, _Never,_ he thought, _Never mention coming off of a broomstick around Yami._

Harry woke up early on Saturday Morning, Yugi was already up, or at least Harry thought he was, the bed was empty, but the teen had gone to bed before Harry. The boy was nervous, mainly at the thought of what Wood would say if Gryffindor lost, but mainly at the thought of facing a team mounted on the best racing brooms gold could buy. He had never wanted to beat Slytherin so badly.

After half an hour of lying there with his insides churning, he got up, dressed, and went down to an early breakfast, where he found Yugi and the rest of the team huddled at the long, empty table, all looking uptight and not speaking much.

As eleven o'clock approached, the whole school started to make its way to the Quidditch Stadium. It was a muggy sort of day with a hint of thunder in the air. The gang came hurrying over to wish Yugi and Harry good luck as they entered the changing rooms. The team pulled on their scarlet Quidditch robes, Yugi pulling his on for the first time before a match, then sat down to listen to Wood's pre-match prep talk.

"Slytherin have got better brooms then us," he began, "no point denying it. But we've got better people on our brooms. We've trained harder then they have, we've been flying in all weathers… ('Too true,' muttered George Weasley, 'I haven't been properly dry since August.')… and we're going to make them rue the day they let that little bit of slime, Malfoy and his brother Bakura, buy their way onto their team," He looked around at the shocked faces, "I forgot to warn you all, Bakura Malfoy will be playing today too, Beater, so watch out Yugi." Yugi nodded. Wood turned to Harry, "It'll be down to you Harry, to show them a Seeker has to have something more then a fast broom. Get to that Snitch or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to!"

"So no pressure, Harrry!" Fred said, winking at him.

Yami watched anxiously as the teams filed out, Lee Jordan, a Gryffindor, was commentating, and called out the names of the teams, Yami smiled in pride as the name Muto was announced to the entire school, but his happiness was short lived as the Slytherin team filed out, ending on Malfoy and Malfoy. Yami growled as he saw Bakura with a Beater's club. Yugi was looking determined and was ignoring the pointed look Bakura was giving him. The teams got into position and Madam Hooch blew the whistle and the game began, with Yugi grabbing the Quaffle first off and passed it to Alicia.

Yugi dived for a second to avoid a Bludger aimed at him by Bakura and caught the Quaffle, only to have it taken off of him by a green blur. Yugi looked up and saw Harry, George and Fred having trouble with a second Bludger which seemed to have it in for Harry. Yugi managed to regain the Quaffle and was streaking towards the goal when he was hit by a Bludger and dropped the ball. Yami winced against the pain he felt from his hikari, Bakura was focusing his attacks on Yugi and had succeeded at the critical moment, hitting Yugi's right shoulder just as he'd been about to score.

A time out was called, and Yugi dived towards the ground watching Harry, George and Fred trying to avoid the mad Bludger. "What's going on?" Wood said, as the team gathered together, while the Slytherins in the crowd jeered, "We're being flattened. Fred, George, where were you when that Bludger stopped Yugi scoring?"

"We were twenty feet above him, stopping the other Bludger murdering Harry, Oliver!" George said angrily, "Someone's fixed it… it won't leave Harry alone, it hasn't gone for anyone else all game. The Slytherins must have done something to it."

"But the Bludgers have been locked in Madam Hooch's office since out last practise, and there was nothing wrong with them then…" said Wood anxiously. Madam Hooch was walking towards them, and they could see the Slytherin team jeering behind her.

"Listen," said Harry as Madam Hooch came closer, "with you two flying around me all the time the only way I'm going to catch the Snitch is if it flies up my sleeve," he continued, "You go back to the rest of the team, Yugi needs you to stop the Bludger Bakura keeps hitting at him. Let me deal with the rogue!"

"Don't be thick," Said Fred, "It'll take your head off." Yugi rotated the injured shoulder, testing how much he could move it, a movement Oliver Wood didn't miss as he looked around at the team.

"Oliver, this is mad," Alicia said angrily, "You can't let Harry deal with that thing on his own. Let's ask for an enquiry!"

"If we stop now we have to forfeit the match!" Harry said, "And we're not losing to Slytherin just because of a mad Bludger! Come on Oliver, tell them to leave me alone."

"This is your fault!" Fred said angrily to Wood, "'Get the Snitch or die trying!' What a stupid thing to tell him!"

Madam Hooch had reached them, "Are you ready to resume play?"

Oliver looked around, and made up his mind on seeing the determined look on Harry's face, "All right!" He said, "Fred, George, you heard Harry, leave him alone and let him deal with the Bludger on his own."

The gang watched the match closely as the game resumed, with Harry having to try every trick in the book to avoid the mad Bludger, while Yugi and Alicia, now they had back up, were beginning to pull the score back slowly.

Yugi saw Harry and Malfoy talking, and passed the Quaffle to Alicia, soaring upwards as the rogue Bludger swerved in for a fresh strike at Harry who'd stayed still to long. Harry was startled as Yugi flew upwards on his left side, groaning and being pushed into Harry as something hit the Chaser. Harry caught him gently, holding him upright. Yugi sat upright on his broom, pain obvious in his eyes, "Harry, move!" Yugi gasped, as the Bludger closed in on the pair. Harry spotted something that would end the game. The Snitch was hovering above Malfoy's head. Harry went to grab the Snitch, but had stayed still way too long, helping Yugi, the rogue Bludger, smashed into Harry's elbow. Harry grabbed the Snitch with the other arm.

Harry and Yugi dived towards the ground, Yugi managed to land but Harry hit the mud and rolled off. His arm was at a very odd angle. Fred and George were wrestling with the rogue Bludger, Harry looked at the Snitch in his hand. "Ah ha! We won!" He said, vaguely, and passed out.

Yami and the gang rushed onto the pitch, Yugi saw them, smiled, "Harry caught the Snitch!" Yugi gasped, and passed out, falling into Yami's arms. Yami growled, Yugi had been hit by the Bludger, protecting his friend, when Harry had stayed still too long and it from the feelings he'd gotten down the link, Yugi was in a lot of pain.

"He's as stubborn as you are!" Joey complimented the unconscious hikari, while speaking to Yami.

Harry came round with rain falling on his face, still led on the pitch. Someone was leaning over him, someone with glittering teeth. "Oh no, not you!" Harry moaned.

"Doesn't know what he's talking about!" Lockheart said loudly, to the anxious crowd of Gryffindors pressing around them. "No worry, Harry! I'm about to fix your arm…"

"No!" said Harry, "I'll keep it like this thanks." Harry said, trying to get up, but the pain was terrible, he heard a clicking. "I don't want a photo of this, Colin!" He said loudly, he'd spotted Yugi on the ground, a worried Yami knelt by his side. Joey was pushing away a worried Rebecca, annoyed by the girl's persistence.

"Lie back Harry, I've used this plenty of times." Lockheart said soothingly, "It's a simple charm I've used countless times."

"Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?" said Harry through clenched teeth.

"Both he and Yugi should really Professor!" said a muddy Wood, who couldn't help grinning, even with two of his players injured. "Great capture Harry, your best yet, I'd say!"

"Stand back!" Lockheart said, rolling up his sleeves.

"No! Don't!" Harry said, but it was too late. Lockheart had twirled his wand and pointed it at Harry's arm. Harry looked at his arm and nearly passed out again, his arm resembled a large rubber glove, with no bones in it at all.

"You're not coming anywhere near Yugi!" Yami snapped, having seen the trouble Lockheart had caused as Hermione and Ron helped Harry to his feet. Lockheart looked offended as he stopped dead in his tracks. "Alright, Joey, can you move him?" Yami asked, turning to his friend. Joey nodded and lifted Yugi carefully, carrying the boy up to the hospital wing, with Harry being helped by Ron and Hermione. Yami, Kari and Ombre followed.

Madam Pomfrey wasn't best pleased.

"Mr Muto, I can probably heal in an hour or two, I can mend bones in a second, however regrowing them is a whole other matter!"

"You can, can't you?" Hermione asked.

"I'll be able to, but it will be painful." Madam Pomfrey said, chucking a change of clothes at Harry. "Both you and Mr Muto will need to stay the night. I can heal him, but he'll need rest, something he won't get in the Gryffindor Common Room tonight." Madam Pomfrey passed Harry a large bottle of Skele-Gro, which was vile to the taste. "And regrowing bones is a nasty business, it'll be a painful night for you, Potter."

Madam Pomfrey walked over to Yugi's bed, and waved her wand, a bright blue light feeding from the tip and surrounding Yugi. Yami watched with interest as Yugi's pale face got some colour back, and his breathing sounded less forced. "He'll be fine, he just had a couple of broken ribs, from where the Bludger impacted, that sport is dangerous…" Madam Pomfrey continued along those lines as she went to get something from her storerooms.

"I'd like to know how Malfoy bewitched the Bludger to chase Harry in the first place." Joey said, speaking up while the nurse was out the room.

"Something else we'll have to ask him, when we use the Polyjuice potion." Said Harry, relieved that Madam Pomfrey was able to fix his arm and that Yugi hadn't been too badly hurt. He knew broken ribs were serious but Madam Pomfrey had made out that she'd fixed those just now. "I hope it tastes better then this stuff." Harry said, sinking into his pillows and referring to the Skele-Gro.

"With bits of Slytherins in? I doubt it." Ron said, half joking. Yugi stirred and opened his eyes, Yami was by his side in seconds.

"How are you feeling?" Yami said, leaning on Yugi's bed.

"I'm fine, stop worrying about me." Yugi said, "How's Harry?"

Yami smiled, typical Yugi. Joey couldn't help laughing, "He's fine except for one small thing."

"What's that?" Yugi asked, concerned. Harry lifted his arm as best he could and Yugi gasped. "How?"

"Lockheart." Yami replied, as the Gryffindor Quidditch team burst into the room, having come to see Harry and Yugi.

"Unbelievable flying, Harry!" Said George, "I've just seen Marcus Flint yelling at Malfoy. Something about having the Snitch on top of his head and not noticing." They had brought everything to have a good party. But unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey stormed over, shouting, "These boys need rest, one's just had ribs reset and the other has 33 bones to regrow! Out! OUT!"

For a moment it looked as though Yami was going to get away with hiding near the doorway. But when he was spotted by Madam Pomfrey, she'd gotten angry. "I'm warning you Mr Muto, if you don't get out right now I'll see to it there's a good reason you're here!" Yami left, muttering something about the nurses here being evil.

"He's always so protective of you." Harry said to Yugi, who was smiling gently, wishing Yami would open up his end of the mind link, "Was he always like this? Even when you two shared a body?"

Yugi laughed, "Yeap, pretty much since we first met, but it got worse after he thought he'd lost me."

"Lost you?"

Yugi nodded, "Have you ever heard of Maximillian Pegasus?"

"No, who's he?"

"You know we play Duel Monsters?" Harry nodded, "Well he's the man who created the cards."

"But I thought the game was five thousand years old at least!" Harry spluttered.

"It is," Yugi continued, "The cards have only been around a few years, they're the modern form of the game." Harry nodded.

"So what does this Pegasus guy have to do with Yami being protective?"

"Pegasus liked collecting souls."

"Souls?" Harry gasped.

"We played a Shadow Game against him and I wasn't strong enough, I fainted and Yami went all avenging angel like. If it wasn't for him and my friends…" Yugi shuddered. He hated the Shadow Realm, hated it, hated it, hated it! "Since then he's always been overly protective of me, I don't mind, but sometimes I wish he'd think about himself first, instead of me." Yugi smiled, "Mind you, we've still ended up in some pretty unpleasant situations."

"Why do I get the feeling, you guys didn't tell us everything last year?" Yugi just laughed.

Madam Pomfrey came in, "If you boys don't quiet down, I'll force a sleeping potion down you." Yugi went quiet very quickly. Harry on the other hand thought she was being unfair, and wanted to hear more about Yugi and the others, however he daren't speak now. Maybe once they were out the Hospital Wing...

* * *

Hours later, Harry woke quite suddenly in the pitch darkness and gave a small yelp of pain; his arm now felt full of large splinters. He looked over to Yugi's bed, the small boy was still asleep. Harry probably wouldn't say this to his face, but Yugi at 12, wasn't much shorter then Yugi at 18, Harry knew, he'd seen this for a fact. He tried to roll over and go back to sleep but found someone was leaning over him.

"Get Off!" He said loudly, stirring Yugi, "Dobby?" He gasped the house-elf's name as he realised who it was.

"Harry? What's wrong?" Yugi asked sleepily. Harry didn't reply he was too busy staring at the house-elf.

"Harry Potter has come back to school," He whispered miserably, "Dobby warned Harry Potter. Ah, sir, why didn't you heed Dobby? Why didn't Harry Potter go home when he missed the train?"

Harry heaved himself up on the pillows and pushed Dobby away. "What're you doing here? And how do you know I missed the train?" Dobby's lip trembled, "It was you!" He said slowly, "You stopped the barrier from letting us through!"

"Indeed yes, sir," Dobby said, nodding vigorously, "Dobby hid and watched for Harry Potter and sealed the gateway and Dobby had to iron his hands afterwards…" He showed the two boys ten long, bandaged fingers, "But Dobby didn't care, sir, for he thought Harry Potter was safe, and never did Dobby dream that Harry Potter would get to school another way!"

Harry slumped back onto his pillows, "You nearly got me, Ron and Joey expelled;" He said fiercely, "You'd better clear off before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you." Dobby smiled weakly.

"Dobby is used to death treats, sir. Dobby gets them 5 times a day at home." He blew his nose on a corner of the filthy pillowcase he wore, looking so pathetic that Yugi felt sorry for him.

"Why d'you wear that thing?" Yugi asked, beginning to wake up slightly.

"This, little Pharaoh?" Dobby said, turning to Yugi and plucking at the pillowcase, "Tis a mark of a house-elf's enslavement, your highness. Dobby can only be freed if his masters present him with clothes. The family is careful not to pass Dobby a sock. For then he would be free to leave their house for ever." Dobby stared at them with bulging eyes, "Harry Potter must go home! The Pharaoh must join him, he should never have come to Hogwarts in the first place! Dobby thought his Bludger would be enough to make…"

"Your Bludger?" said Harry, anger rising once more, "What d'you mean your Bludger? You made that Bludger try to kill me?"

"Not to kill you, sir, never meant to kill you!" Said Dobby shocked, "Dobby wants to save Harry Potter's life. Better sent home, grievously injured, then remain here, sir! Dobby only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home."

"Dobby? If it's so important that the Pharaoh goes home too, why haven't you come after me?" Yugi asked.

Dobby looked at him, "It is not smart to anger the Pharaoh, hurting his light would only cause him to stay, I have not come up with a plan that would not cause the Pharaoh to blame and attack my younger Masters." Yugi could understand that, Yami angered was not a pretty sight and nothing was liable to anger him faster then Yugi being in trouble or hurt. And from what Dobby had been saying, if Yami attacked the house-elf's Masters, Dobby would be the one punished.

Harry was still fuming, "I don't suppose your going to tell me why you want me sent home in little pieces?"

"Ah, if only Harry Potter knew!" Dobby groaned, "If he knew what he means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, us dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He Who Must Not Be Named was at the height of his powers, sir! We house-elves were treated like vermin, sir! Of course, Dobby is still treated like that, sir. But mostly, sir, life has improved for my kind since you triumphed over He Who Must Not Be Named. Harry Potter survived, and the Dark Lord's power was broken, and it was a new dawn, sir, and Harry Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those of us who thought the dark days would never end, sir… and now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps happening already, and Dobby cannot let either of you stay here now that History is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber is open once more…"

Dobby stopped, horror-struck, then grabbed Harry's water jug from his bedside table and cracked it over his head, toppling out of sight. A couple of moments later he crawled back onto Harry's bed, muttering, "Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby!"

"So there is a Chamber of Secrets?" Harry whispered, "And… did you say it's been opened before? Tell me Dobby!" He seized the elf's wrist as it reached for the water jug, "But neither me or Yugi are Muggle-born, how can we be in danger from the Chamber?"

"Ah, sir, do not ask anymore of Dobby, dark deeds are planned in this place, but Harry Potter or the Pharaoh and his light must not be here when they happen. Go home, Harry Potter, go home, Yugi Muto. You must not meddle in this, sirs, it's too dangerous…"

"Dobby? Who opened it last time?" Yugi asked calmly.

"Dobby can't, sir, Dobby can't, Dobby mustn't tell!" Squealed the house-elf, "Go home, Harry Potter, go home, Yugi Muto, and take the Pharaoh with you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Yugi said firmly, "Some of my best friends are muggle-born. They'll be first in line if the chamber really has been opened…"

"The little Pharaoh risks his own life for his friends, he truly is the light, but he must save himself, he must not be here, the darkness must not destroy the light… His Royal Highness is too important…"

Dobby froze, Harry and Yugi could hear it, voices and footsteps, "Dobby must go." The house-elf breathed and vanished. The two boys slumped back onto their beds as the footsteps neared. Dumbledore led a group of teachers, carrying two figures between them, into the hospital wing.

"Get Madam Pomfrey!" whispered Dumbledore, the two boys led quite still, pretending to be asleep.

"What happened?" The nurse asked.

"Another attack, a triple attack. Minerva found them on the stairs."

"There was a bunch of grapes next to him, and a couple of booster packs next to her, and the dragon was led next to them, it's not petrified, but it seems to be very ill, maybe one of the other duellists can explain it. We think they were trying to sneak down to see Potter and Muto." Harry and Yugi's stomachs lurched, they propped themselves up enough to see who the two were, without getting caught.

The boy was Colin Creevley, he had his camera in his hands, the girl was…

"Rebecca!" Yugi whispered, it was barely audible, but he and Harry ducked anyway, just in case.

"Petrified?" Madam Pomfrey asked, Dumbledore nodded.

"Yes," McGonagall said, "But I shudder to think what could have happened had Albus hadn't been on his way down for some hot chocolate." She tried to prise Rebecca's hands away from her glasses, but couldn't.

The three of them stared down at Colin, and Dumbledore prised the camera from the boy's hands. "You don't think he managed to get a picture of his attacker?" Dumbledore didn't answer, he just opened the back, and a jet of steam hissed out of the camera.

"Melted… all melted." Madam Pomfrey said in wonder.

"What does this mean, Albus?"

"It means the Chamber of Secrets, is indeed open again."

Professor McGonagall gasped, "But Albus… surely… who?"

"The question is not who," Said Dumbledore, "The question is how?"

Harry was peeking again and he could tell, Professor McGonagall was as confused as he was.


	10. Polyjuice Potion and Hatching Eggs

Harry woke up Sunday morning to find the hospital wing blazing with winter sunlight and his arm re-boned but very stiff. He sat up and looked over to Colin and Rebecca's beds. They were blocked from view by the curtains Harry and Yugi had changed behind yesterday. He looked over to Yugi, who was still sleeping deeply.

Madam Pomfrey saw Harry was awake and bustled over, with his breakfast tray, then began stretching Harry's arm and fingers. "All in order." She said quietly, as Yugi stirred and Harry fed himself clumsily with his left hand. "Once you've finished eating, you may leave."

Yugi blinked at them sleepily and Madam Pomfrey examined him, finally accepting his full recovery and getting him breakfast. The two boys dressed as quickly as possible and hurried off to Gryffindor tower, desperate to tell the others about Colin, Rebecca and Dobby, but they weren't there. The pair left to look for them, wondering where they could have got to and Harry felt slightly hurt that they weren't interested in whether he had his bones back or not. Yami had inquired how Yugi was the moment he'd woken up. Yugi had told them that Harry was fully recovered and he was feeling fine.

' _Boh?'_

 _Master! You're awake!_ Kuriboh sounded worried.

' _What happened to Rebecca last night? Does Minneola know?'_ Yugi asked, worried, it wasn't like Kuriboh to worry about anything.

_The Emerald Dragon will not wake, and he seems to be ill, I cannot sense him and only Dark Magician and Blue Eyes White Dragon can. We don't know what's wrong!_

' _Rebecca got petrified last night, could they be connected?'_ Yugi asked, further concerned, he knew there was a link between Duel Monsters and their partners but they had yet to test it since both Joey and Kaiba had argued against testing the link. Could their lifeforces be connected?

_We don't know. Mahado and Mana have theories but we don't actually know. The Spellcasters think they read about a monster that could petrify or kill a person a very long time ago but aren't sure._

' _Thanks.'_

As they passed the library, Percy Weasley strolled out of it, looking in far better spirits then last time they'd met.

"Hello Harry, Yugi, great flying yesterday, really excellent. Gryffindor have just taken the lead for the House Cup, you earned 50 points between you."

"You haven't seen the gang, have you?" Harry asked.

"No, I haven't," Said Percy, his smile fading, "I hope Ron's not in another girl's toilet." Yugi just laughed and Percy walked out of sight, then rushed to Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom. They couldn't see why the gang would be there again, but after making sure no one was around to see them, Yugi opened the door and the two boys heard their voices coming from seemingly nowhere.

"It's us." Harry said, closing the door behind them. There was a clunk, a splash and a gasp from thin air and then a few muttered words, Hermione appeared from out of no where, "Harry, Yugi! You gave us a fright!" She waved her wand and the invisibility spell vanished, revealing the entire group. Kari waved and smiled at them.

"Harry! Yugi! How are you both?"

"Fine." Harry said, joining the large group at the back of the room, inside an end cubicle Hermione joined Kari next to a cauldron which was perched on an old toilet and a crackling under the rim told the two boys they'd lit a fire underneath. While Kari had mastered warming spells, favouring "Chaleur" as the most effective, portable waterproof fires were Hermione's specialty.

"Refracting spell please, girls!" Joey said, Hermione and Kari laughed and they worked together, placing the spell on the group and the cauldron as a team.

"It's not a true invisibility spell, it's a combination of Shadow Magic and a light refracting spell." Kari said, "We'd've come to meet you but we decided to get started on the Polyjuice potion." She explained, "Yugi had told Yami you'd fully recovered and were going to be let out so we thought we'd make an early start."

"Sorry for cutting you off earlier, Yugi. Professor Dumbledore interrupted me." Their monsters were nowhere in sight, neither was a certain Egyptian Princess.

"Where's Ombre?" Harry asked, looking around.

"With Ryou." Kari said shortly, her mind link was blocked at the moment so she had no idea other then that.

Harry and Yugi started explaining about Rebecca and Colin, but Yami interrupted, "We already know, we heard Professor McGonagall telling Professor Flitwick this morning and then Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to our Duel Monsters and explained. That's why we decided we'd better get going…"

"What's wrong with Minneola?" Yugi asked, Yami would have a better idea then he did.

"I don't know, but Hagrid is taking care of him. It took some work getting him down from the roof this morning, it took all the monsters to get him down." Yami said.

"The sooner we get a confession out of Malfoy the better," Snarled Joey, "I bet he was such a foul mood after the Quidditch match he took it out on Rebecca and Colin."

"There's something else," Yugi said, watching the two girls tearing up bundles of knotgrass and throwing them into the potion, "Dobby paid us a visit last night." The gang looked at them, amazed. The pair explained everything, including everything that Dobby had said, or not said.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened **before**?" Asked Hermione. Yugi nodded.

"That settles it," Said Ron triumphantly, "Lucius Malfoy must've opened the Chamber when he was at school here and now he's told dear old Draco, and probably Bakura, how to open it. Wish Dobby'd told you what sort of monster was in there though. I'd like to know how it's getting around without being seen."

Yami was watching Yugi carefully, concern in his eyes. Yugi hadn't been going to tell Yami what Dobby had said about him going home, but Harry had dropped him in it, Yugi knew he'd probably to have to explain at some point.

"So Dobby stopped us getting on the train and broke your arm?" Ron asked, "You know what, Harry? If he doesn't stop trying to save your life, he's going to kill you!"

"And now he wants to help Yugi too? Be careful pal, his help lands people in trouble." Joey said, with a small smile to Yugi.

* * *

The news about Rebecca and Colin spread through the entire school by Monday morning. The air was thick with suspicion and fear. The first-years were moving around the school in groups. Ginny Weasley was distraught, unsurprising considering one of the victims was her best friend. Fred and George were going about cheering her up, the wrong way, scaring the girl half to death regularly, and didn't stop until Percy, who was even scaring Yami with his temper, threatened to write to Mrs Weasley.

Meanwhile a roaring trade in talismans, amulets and other protective devices, none of which Yami or the rest of the gang held in high regard, built up, sweeping the school. Neville had bought an unbelievable amount of these items, he was pure blood it was true, but as he pointed out to Ron, so was Rebecca and she hadn't been safe.

In the first week of December, a second roar arose from the Great Hall, causing Joey to get up and rush out of the Common Room, "WHEELER!"

"What is it Rich-boy?" Joey asked, he and Kaiba had been prepared for the eggs hatching for two weeks; they'd been slowly getting harder, "Are they...?" He followed Kaiba into the Great Hall, Hagrid was waiting there too, smiling at Joey, the two, Kaiba and Joey, had decided that one of the Dragons should go to Hagrid, since he wanted a dragon of his own.

The rest of the gang managed to push their way through the crowd surrounding the Ravenclaw table, which was closest to the fire and had the eggs on. Joey watched in anticipation as the eggs shook, he didn't care how Kaiba had gotten them down here from his Common Room as long as they hatched properly. Hagrid was hovering around one silver dragon egg. The other four were in a group, Joey closest to the black egg and a silver one, Kaiba the white egg and the last silver egg. The Headmaster had said the hatchlings could stay as long as the older dragons kept the hatchlings in line. Five hatchlings, to five… no currently four dragons, it would be a challenge but Joey was determined it would work.

Mahado, the Dark Magician, was refusing to have anything to do with the eggs except for glaring at them. Mana, Dark Magician Girl, kept glancing at Mahado and giggling. Boh stayed well away, since Blue Eyes had threatened to feed him to the hatchlings.

Joey bit his lip as the first egg cracked, splitting straight down the middle, revealing the occupant of Hagrid's silver egg. A tiny silver dragon, with imperial purple eyes. Hagrid's face broke into the largest grin the gang had ever seen, he had his own dragon, one he would be able to keep forever, without fear of it being taken away like Norbert.

Joey's attention was drawn by the sound of cracking, both his black egg and Kaiba's white egg were hatching at the same time, the black egg spilt into about 50 pieces, while the white spilt into only two, a revealing a tiny Red Eyes Charcoal-Black Dragon and a little Blue Eyes Egg-White dragon.

Kaiba smirked slightly, trust the mutt's eggs to make more mess. Then the grin was wiped off his face as his silver egg split into goodness only knows how many pieces which ended up everywhere as the hatchling tried to escape the table, opening it's hatchling wings but not getting any lift. This Purple Eyes Silver's eyes were a slightly different colour, Kaiba had to wonder if Gods were teasing him by giving his Purple Eyes Silver Dragon the same colour eyes as Yugi.

Yugi watched intently as Joey's last egg hatched, revealing a Purple Eyes Silver Dragon, with intense plum eyes, none of these dragons were identical, which was probably a good thing, but you wouldn't be able to tell the PESDs apart from a distance. Kari edged her way forward towards the hatchlings, and Joey let her pick one up, she did so, picking up the Purple Eyes from Joey's eggs. The tiny dragon nipped her finger and then snuggled into her, growling pathetically. Mana came forward, as did Ombre and Yugi, while Yami, Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at Hagrid's.

"Feed them you idiots." Kaiba growled, a softer version of the food fed to the adult dragons next to him in a bowl. Kari made her way over, as did Joey who was holding the Charcoal Black Dragon, Yugi had picked up Kaiba's Purple Eyes Silver much to Kaiba's disgust, but he wasn't complaining too loudly as he was too busy trying to feed his Egg-White colour dragon. Hagrid and his dragon were the last to join the group, Kaiba was glad he'd thought to order the House-Elves to keep sending the mush up, once one lot ran out, until he ordered them not too.

Once the baby dragons were sated Kari found Joey's Purple Eyes Silver had hitched its paw in her Gryffindor Robes. The babies were falling asleep in the people's arms, with the little guy attached to her robes falling asleep first. Kaiba turned to Yugi, who was showing the little sleeping silver hatchling to Mahado, who was feigning disinterest. Mana however was positively fawning over the little guy attached to Kari's robes, Kari wasn't too sure how to dislodge the dragon without waking it.

"Yugi." Kaiba said softly, trying not to wake the Egg-White Dragon in his arms. Yugi turned and looked at Kaiba, realising the little dragon had to be returned now. Mokuba was straining to see, having been pushed to the back of the large crowd. He didn't get to see much of his big brother, and he hadn't gotten to see the eggs properly. Mokuba climbed onto a table so he could see and Kaiba spotted him and a passageway was left open for him once Kaiba had called him over.

Yugi handed Kaiba's silver dragon to Mokuba, whose face lit up like a giant torch. Blue Eyes White Chick took that inopportune moment to fly in through the main doors, which were open as students tried to get to and from class, and land headfirst on the Ravenclaw table, Mokuba's chick didn't yet have the grace of it's older and stronger counterpart.

Mokuba rushed over as the chick got to it's feet, and stared at him. It sniffed the hatchling, which was certainly smaller then he was and stared at Mokuba, _That's a baby._ It stated. Mokuba laughed.

' _Obvious much?'_

_I've never seen a baby Duel Monster._

' _Neither have I.'_ Mokuba replied, as he made his way back over to his brother. His Blue Eyes White Chick walking along the thankfully empty table. Joey looked Kaiba in the eyes.

"So what's the plan, you're a young father now, Mr Kaiba." Joey said, only half jokingly.

"Shut up, mutt." Kaiba growled.

"Nothing changes then." Joey sighed, as Kari spoke, "Now can someone **please** remove this dragon's claw from my robes?"

"I think you have a friend there Kari." Ombre said, eyeing the dragon warily, she did not want to make Blue Eyes, who'd somehow gotten in the room at the same time as them, think she was threatening her hatchlings. Yugi moved to help Kari remove Joey's Purple Eyes Silver from her Gryffindor robes and in seconds the little hatchling was free. Blue Eyes watched them carefully, as did Kaiba. It was rather unnerving to have them both watching them so closely.

Joey noticed the wings on his dragon had dried off during all the ooooing and ahhhhing from the crowd and that Red Eyes was staring at him.

 _Seto…_ Came Blue Eyes's mental voice, Kaiba jumped. _Please tell the reincarnation of the Princess I want her to put my hatchling son down NOW!_

' _But where can you go with them?'_

_Our rooms your High Priest Dumbledore, set aside for us._

' _He's our Headmaster and how would you get food to them?'_

_We have our own house elf, will you just tell the Princess's light to put my son down now!_

"Ironhide." Kaiba called, Kari and Ombre looked at him, "You know which one I mean."

"What is it?" Kari asked, turning most of her attention back to the hatchling.

"Blue Eyes would like you to put her son down."

"But I'm not hurting him."

"I know but I'd recommend you put him down before…" Blue Eyes flew overhead and growled at Kari, who sighed and put the hatchling down.

"Kisara!" Kari called, the pure white dragon looked at her, and just roared at her. Kari sighed. "Fine, be like that."

"Blue Eyes, come down here now!" Kaiba ordered. The dragon landed on the High Table, playing you'll-do-what-I-tell-you-not-the-other-way-around . Kaiba growled, that had been deliberate. Yami had to fight to keep a smirk off of his face.

"Don't even think about it, Muto." Kaiba growled, not even needing to look at Yami to know he'd be smirking. "Blue Eyes, Ravenclaw table now!"

Blue Eyes just glared at him.

And Yami dissolved into extremely loud laughter.

Blue Eyes and Kaiba both glared at him.

Yami couldn't stop laughing.

Kaiba sighed and apologised to Hagrid, while he and Mokuba collected up the five hatchlings and put them on the High Table with Kisara. "Happy now?"

 _Yes, very happy._ Kisara told him smugly, her voice echoing through everyone's mind who was in the great hall at that moment of time. _Josie._ The last word was directed else where, only Kaiba and one other heard it. A house-elf appeared.

"Josie is here to serve, mistress."

_Could you help me carry up the little ones to my room?_

"Josie would be honoured, mistress."

 _Seto?_ Kisara asked expectedly.

"You have a room?" Kaiba asked, realising he hadn't thought about where his dragon went when not on duty or with him.

 _Yes._ Kisara replied, surprised Kaiba hadn't thought about it. _Follow me and I'll show you, but you're not to come in uninvited, it's bad enough having to put up with the Fuzzball during class time!_ Curiosity made Kaiba follow without anymore arguments, helping to carry the hatchlings.

The door to the Duel Monster's wing opened as Kisara approached, and she flew in, followed by Kaiba and the house-elf. Kaiba almost laughed. Their Common Room had a large window that looked like it would open from both sides, wide enough for two dragons to fly out at once. But what was so funny was the several conflicting styles, it was like they had not been able to decide how to decorate the room, or had never really discussed it among themselves.

There was a coffee table in front of one of the doors, and several chairs and cushions scattered around, in many different colours, in all there were ten doors leading from this Common Room if you counted the one they'd just entered by and each of the doors were different. From the dull grey of the door blocked by the coffee table to the brilliant white and blue patterns that covered the door of Kisara's room, to the black and purple door that Kaiba assumed was the Dark Magician's.

Kaiba had to smile when he noticed that Blue Eyes and Dark Magician's rooms were as far apart as possible, Dark Magician's by the door and Kisara's by the window so they could easily avoid each other.

A notice board hung on one of the walls, with many notes, most seemed fairly recent and upon closer inspection Kaiba noticed that many of them dealt with rearranging their duty roster, Blue Eyes had been arranging things so that at least two dragons could be here at a time, and had made sure that one of those dragons was herself or the mutt's dragon. There was also the fact Emerald Dragon could no longer do his duty and that had safely been taken care of.

Another major amount on the board was dedicated to an on-going argument between Yami's spellcaster and Kaiba's dragon. Kaiba had to wonder if the other Duel Monsters had decided they were no longer allowed to talk face to face. Probably, if Kisara and the Dark Magician were anything like him and Yami.

They had almost reached an agreement it seemed, if Mahado would stop commenting on the eggs, Kisara would stop commenting on Mana and her lack of them. Kaiba wasn't sure if that was an agreement or a simple refusal to talk about the subject anymore, using cattiness as a weapon, and it had moved onto jam donuts. _Who would want to have… ewwwww,_ Kaiba thought privately. _Who'd… with… gross._

Anyone would have thought donuts were a safe subject, apparently Boh had suggested it, but now they were divided over who had eaten the last one.

Mahado said Boh deserved the last one because he'd only had two, while Kisara was annoyed because someone had eaten all the strawberry ones before she'd gotten there. Kaiba wondered who the dragons go to write the notes, the only thing he could think of is if they used a quick quote quill, which would record their 'speech' and write it down.

Then Kaiba looked further down and the argument had evolved into who's partner was the better duellist, and he was happy to see Yami had been marked down for losing to the veela in the quarter finals. While Mana, the Dark Magician Girl, was gloating because Kari had proved she could beat everyone, even without her Millennium Item. He was annoyed though to see that he was only one place above Yami, still above, but only by one place and how dare they put the mutt above him?

How was the mutt a place above him in the first place? Hadn't he proved that he could beat the dog any day of the week? He checked how they kept score of these things and growled, Joey got extra points from the monsters from coming so close to losing all those times and then somehow winning, it seemed they put more value on a difficult win then an easy one. So will he had more victories it was worth less because he overpowered his opponents, but he had to smile at the fact Yugi and Yami lost points every time they used the Gods. Apparently Mahado and Boh didn't approve of the God Cards.

Then how could Kari was at the top? She could normally crush her opposition? Then he snarled, she got points for being a good winner? And a good loser? And for the most varied amounts of opponents, but Kaiba had to admit that Kari had duelled more then anyone else he knew in more countries then most people saw in their life time.

He sulked as he turned away from the board, Yami wasn't at the bottom, Ombre was, but Yami was close second to worst. In order it ranked from best to worst, with Kari on top, then Yugi, Joey, Kaiba, Yami, and Ombre was dead last, but there was a note he'd missed, Rebecca had been promoted to honery first because she was in the hospital wing. It was the only thing Kisara and Mahado could agree on.

Kisara showed Kaiba into her room, where he left the hatchlings he'd been carrying on her bed and she shoed him out. He left the wing, memorising it's position should he need it in an emergency. Then he walked downstairs where he'd have to explain to the mutt and Hagrid, he realised as he went, that Kisara still hadn't given him a reason for the over protectiveness.


	11. The Duelling Club

A week later Joey was still fuming at the CEO, Hagrid on the other hand had understood, content with the thought that he would have a dragon, though Joey was the one who'd found out the reason for the dragon's overprotective feelings towards the hatchlings, "Red Eyes says they thought they'd be more like Blue White Chick when they hatched, Kisara is going to be protective until they're stronger, at least able use tele…tele… until they can talk."

Professor McGonagall interrupted them with the sheet to put down if they were going to stay at the school over Christmas, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Joey, Yugi and Yami put their names down, Kari and Ombre were going home for Christmas this year, Kari had a few things she needed to sort out back home, and since she was in England and her parents knew it, she had no excuse.

The Christmas holidays were the perfect time to test the potion, they'd heard Malfoy and Bakura were staying over Christmas, with Crabbe and Goyle, there were rumours flying around that their father couldn't have them over Christmas because he couldn't afford it. They wanted to see if they could worm a confession out of Malfoy.

However the potion was only half finished, they still needed the Bicorn horn and the Boomslang skin and they would have to steal from Snape's private stores to get them. Yugi was of the opinion he'd rather play another Shadow Game against Marik then risk Snape catching his stealing from his office.

"What we need," Said Hermione, as Thursday's lesson loomed nearer, "Is a diversion. Then one of us can sneak into Snape's office and take what we need." Harry, Ron and Joey looked at her nervously, "I think I'd better do the actual stealing," Hermione continued, in a matter of fact tone, "You three will get expelled if you get into any more trouble and he doesn't trust you four as far as he can throw you." The latter was directed at Yugi, Yami, Kari and Ombre. Yami nodded, "I've got a clean record and he just ignores me. Then all we need to do is cause enough mayhem to keep Snape busy for five minutes or so. Yami smiled weakly, why did he have the feeling causing mayhem in Snape's potions class was equivalent to poking Marik in the eye? And he did mean Marik not Malik.

Potions lesson took place in one of the large dungeons. Thursday's lesson proceeded as per usual. Snape was stalking his way through the classroom, making waspish remarks about the Gryffindor student's potions. Bakura kept flicking puffer-fish eyes at Yugi, but Yami knew if he retaliated on his hikari's behalf he'd get detention faster then you could say 'unfair.'

Harry's Swelling potion was far too runny, something Snape took great delight in mentioning as he passed. Harry wasn't paying attention, he waited until Snape's back was turned on him, and looked at Hermione, who nodded and Harry took great pleasure in tossing a Filibuster Firework, which had belonged to Fred, who'd willingly given it to them when they'd told him they were going to aggravate Snape, into Bakura's cauldron.

Bakura's potion exploded, showering almost the entire class. People shrieked as the potion landed on them. Bakura was drenched, and swelled up like a balloon, _Serves him right,_ Yami thought, trying to contain a smirk. Through the confusion Harry saw Hermione sneak out. Snape started giving everyone antidotes and Harry desperately trying not to laugh when Malfoy made his way to the front, his nose the size of a small melon. About halfway though the casualties of war Yugi spotted Hermione making her way back into the class, the front of her robes bulging.

When everyone had taken a swig of the antidote and the various swellings had subsided, Snape swept over to Bakura's cauldron and scooped out the remains of the firework. There was a sudden hush.

"If I ever find out who threw this," Snape whispered, "I shall make sure that person is expelled." Yugi tried to look confused, Snape was looking right at him, and though he knew he hadn't thrown it, the bell which rang ten minutes later was a welcome relief.

"At least he didn't look at you, Harry." Yugi said, trying to sound cheerful. Yami gave him a look as if to say what-are-you-hiding?

"I bet he knew Bakura was aggravating you all along. I bet he thought the firework was your way of retaliating." Joey snorted. "He doesn't know you very well…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yami growled protectively.

"Nothing…" Joey was on the defensive, "I just meant that you would have gotten there first." Hermione had thrown the ingredients into the cauldron and was stirring feverishly.

"It'll be ready in a week." She said, stalling any possible argument between Yami and Joey. The two just sat there glaring at each other.

"As long as Snape thinks it was me, he won't even think about questioning you." Yugi continued, talking to Harry, trying to ignore the glaring match… and failing. "Oh, cut it out you two."

"Yeah, but he might try to prove it was you, Yuge." Joey said, finally looking away from Yami's glare.

"But it wasn't." Ron said, "So what, exactly, can he do?"

"Knowing Snape, something foul." Harry said, as the potion bubbled away.

* * *

A week later the gang, were walking across the Entrance Hall when they saw a whole bunch of people gathered around the notice board, reading a newly pinned up piece of parchment. They were beckoned over by an excited looking Seamus Finnigan, and Dean Thomas, and a thoughtful looking Ryou.

"They're starting a Duelling Club!" said Seamus, "First meeting tonight! I wouldn't mind wizard duelling lessons," Joey's face fell as he realised it wasn't a Duel Monsters club, "The lessons might come in handy."

"What do you think?" Yugi asked Yami, who was thoughtfully reading the sign.

"I don't think Slytherin's monster can duel, but it could be useful." Yami said, as they went into dinner. "I'm going to go."

The rest of the gang were up for it, so at eight o'clock they hurried back to the Great Hall. The long dinning tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles overhead. Most of the school seemed to be here, carrying their wands and looking excited.

"I wonder who the teacher will be." Kari said, as they edged their way into the chattering crowd. "Someone told me Flitwick was a Duelling champion, no Joey, not our sort of Duelling," Joey poked his tongue out at her, "He was a champion, when he was young, maybe it'll be him."

"As long as it's not…" Yami began, but ended on a growl, as Lockheart walked onto the stage.

"Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me?" Lockheart called waving his arms.

"Why would we want to?" Joey asked, Kari stomped on his foot.

"Now, Professor Dumbledore has given me permission to start this little Duelling Club, to train you up in case you ever need to defend yourself as I myself have done on countless occasions, for full details, see my published works." Harry was surprised to hear a bored, derisive, snort from Yugi. Yami gave the hikari a startled look; obviously Lockheart had pushed even the normally placid boy to his limits.

"Let me introduce my assistant Professor Snape," Lockheart flashed a smile, "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about Duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now I don't want you to worry, you'll still have your Potions Master when I'm through with him."

"Wouldn't it be good if they finished each other off?" Yugi whispered, it was only loud enough for the gang to hear it, but Yami nearly fainted in surprise, he had to wonder who this boy was and what he'd done with Yugi.

' _Are you alright?'_

"…" Yugi didn't reply, it wasn't because he couldn't hear Yami, he was just ignoring him, he had been since the owls had arrived this morning. Yami's owl had arrived with post for Yugi and the hikari had been quiet ever since. Yami was worried but was distracted by Lockheart being blasted off his feet by Snape.

"Do you think he's alright?" Hermione asked.

"Who cares?" Harry, Ron, Yugi and Joey said at the same time.

Lockheart got to his feet a little unsteadily. His hat had fallen off and his hair was tilting to one side. He fixed this immediately and tottered back to the platform. "That was a disarming charm, as you see I've lost my wand, ah, yes thank you Miss Ironhide, yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, But if you don't mind me…" Lockheart trailed off at the murderous look Snape was giving him. He changed the subject, "Alright, I'm going to come around and put you into pairs." Immediately Yugi and Yami tried to pair up, but Lockheart had other ideas.

"Ah yes, Mr Malfoy…no not you, the other one, that's right, if you pair up with Mr Muto, no not you, the little one." Yami gave Lockheart the most evil look you could possibly imagine as the idiot teacher paired Yugi with Bakura. "And Mr Kaiba, if you'd pair up with the other twin…" Now he was getting death glares from two parties.

"Wands at the ready!" Lockheart called, returning to the stage, "And bow!" Yugi's bow was more of a nod, he refused to take his eyes from Bakura. Yami and Kaiba barely even nodded at each other. "On three cast your wands to disarm your opponent, **DISARM ONLY** , we don't want any accidents. One…two…three!"

Malfoy wasn't the only one who started on two, while his spell hit Harry hard enough to make him feel as though he'd been hit over the head with a saucepan, Bakura cast a spell that had Yugi staggering backwards, feeling like he'd been hit a rugby player. Kaiba and Yami had started on three, but their spells had bounced off each other and hit other people in the crowd.

"I SAID DISARM ONLY!" Lockheart yelled over the heads of the battling crowd, but no one heard him, Yugi had gotten his wind back and cast a spell that sent Bakura sprawling.

"So you do have some fight in you, it's not just the Pharaoh's doing!" Bakura smirked, as he got to his feet, he tackled Yugi, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Yami saw this and looked away from Kaiba, giving the CEO enough time to hit Yami with "Rictusempra!" The beam of silver light hit the Pharaoh and he doubled up, wheezing.

"STOP! STOP!" Lockheart yelled, but Snape took control.

"Finte Incantateum!" Snape shouted, all active spells stopped. There only two pairs still moving. One of which was Yugi and Bakura, which was soon remedied when Joey and Kari pulled Bakura off of Yugi, prising his hands off the chain of the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi winced in pain as Yami helped him to his feet.

The other pair was Hermione and Millicent Bulstode, a Slytherin in their year, or the year above. The Slytherin had Hermione in a headlock and Hermione was whimpering in pain. It took Harry, Ron, Ryou and Ombre to pull her off, considering she wasn't much older then them, what she lacked in age she made up for in sheer bulk.

Lockheart walked through the crowd, giving advice on recovering and stopping in the middle of the hall, "I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," He glanced at Snape who quickly looked away, "Let's have a volunteer pair… Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you?"

"A bad idea, Professor Lockheart," said Snape, "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest of spells. We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchly up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Neville's face went pinker, "How about Malfoy and Muto?" said Snape with a twisted smile.

' _This has to be payback 'cause he thinks I chucked the firework.'_ Yugi thought down the link to Yami.

"Excellent idea!" Said Lockheart, gesturing Yugi and Bakura into the middle of the room, the crowd backed away quickly, to give them room, plus the fact they didn't like the look on Bakura's face.

"Now, Yugi," Lockheart said, "When Bakura points his wand at you, you do this." He did something with his wand that was supposed to be a complicated wiggling action, Yugi guessed. Lockheart dropped his wand. Lockheart picked it up quickly.

Snape moved closer to Bakura, and whispered something in his ear. Bakura smirked and Yugi looked up at Lockheart, "Professor, what was that you showed me, again?" Lockheart just pushed him forward.

"Scared, little Yugi?" Bakura smirked at him as he stepped forward.

"You wish."

"Three… two… one… go!" Lockheart shouted, Bakura raised his wand quickly and before Yugi could counter, he bellowed something.

"Serpensortia!" The end of Bakura's wand exploded, and a large black cobra shot out the end and raised itself, ready to strike. Yugi was paralyzed, he didn't know what to do, his mind was too busy screaming cobra, cobra, cobra, cobra…

"Don't move, Muto," Snape said, clearly enjoying seeing Yugi rooted to the spot, ash white and eye to eye with an angry snake, "I'll get rid of it…"

"Allow me!" Lockheart said, brandishing his wand, there was a loud bang and instead of disappearing it shot up into the air and landed with a thud. Enraged it turned on the nearest person, hissing fiercely.

It stopped in front of Justin Finch-Fletchley and raised itself again, fangs exposed, poised to strike.

Harry wasn't sure what made him do it. He wasn't even aware of deciding to do it. All he knew was that he moved forward and that he had shouted stupidly at the snake, "Leave them!" And for some odd reason the snake had listened, slumping to the floor docile as a garden hose, with it's black eyes on Harry. Harry knew for some odd reason that it wouldn't attack anyone now, not Yugi, not Justin or anyone else in the room, though how he knew, he wasn't sure.

He looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting the Hufflepuff to be relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful… but certainly not angry or scared.

"What do you think you're playing at?" Justin yelled, before storming out of the hall. Snape made the snake vanish while looking at him in an odd way and he felt someone tug the back of his robes, as ominous muttering started up around the room.

"Come on," Said Yami's voice in his ear, "Move… come on…" Harry was steered out of the Great Hall by Yami and Ron with the rest of the gang following. None of the gang would explain anything until they'd dragged him into the empty Gryffindor Common Room, and Yugi had collapsed into an armchair, and Ron had pushed Harry into another one while Yami looked Yugi over, the hikari's face was still white with fear.

"You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?" Ron demanded.

"I'm a what?" Harry asked, confused.

"Parselmouth!" Ron said, "You can talk to snakes!"

"I know," Said Harry, "I mean that's only the second time I've ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley once, long story, but it was telling me it had never seen Brazil and I accidentally set it free. That was before I knew I was a wizard."

"A boa constrictor you'd never seen before told you it had never seen Brazil?" Yugi repeated faintly, colour finally returning to his face.

"So?" Said Harry defensively, "I bet a load of people here can do it?"

"No, they can't, it's not a very common gift. Harry this is bad."

"What's bad?" Harry said angrily, "If I hadn't told the snake to leave Yugi and Justin alone…"

"Oh, so that's what you said to it."

"What d'you mean? You were all there… you heard me."

"We heard you speaking Parseltongue," Yami said, "Snake language. You could have been saying anything. It's no wonder Justin panicked, it sounded like you were egging the snake on."

"It was creepy." Joey said, looking Harry in the eyes. Harry gaped at them.

"I spoke another language? But… I didn't realise… how can I speak another language without knowing I can speak it?"

"How did I become fluent in ancient Egyptian overnight?" Kari retorted, "Without extensive study? Magic!" Harry had to admit she had a point.

"Can you please tell me what's wrong with stopping a dirty great snake from biting Justin's head off. What does it matter as long as he doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters," Hermione said, speaking at last, "Because being able to speak to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin house is a snake." Harry's mouth fell open.

"Exactly," said Ombre, And now the school's going to think you're his great-great etcetera grandson or something!"

"But I'm not!" Harry said, a feeling of panic he couldn't quite explain rising.

"You'll find it hard to prove." Said Hermione, "He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be."

* * *

By the next morning the snowfall that had begun in the night, raising Kari's hopes of a chance at ice skating before she had to go home, had turned into a full blown blizzard so thick the last Herbology lesson with Hufflepuff house was cancelled. Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation, but an essential one as they were needed to revive Mrs Norris, Colin and Rebecca.

Harry fretted about the previous day, wanting to explain to Justin, pacing next to the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, while Kari had gone ice skating now the blizzard had died down, Ron and Hermione were playing a game of wizard's chess and the rest of the Gryffindor group were duelling each other, with Yami in the lead, his life points untouched.

Eventually Yami was banned from playing, after beating Joey and Ombre and drawing with Yugi and he left the Common Room to go look for Kari. Hermione grew frustrated as Harry continued to pace and she started losing, "For heaven's sake, Harry," She said as Ron's bishop dragged her knight off the board, "Go and find Justin if it's that important to you!"

Harry left the Common Room, wondering where Justin might be. The castle was darker then it normally was in the daytime, because of the thick swirling grey snow which hadn't long started up again, Harry hoped that Kari had enough sense to come inside. Harry heard snippets of conversation as he passed the classrooms, not everyone was as lucky as them to have a cancelled lesson. As he passed the Transfiguration class he could hear Professor McGonagall yelling at a boy who by the sound of it had turned his friend into a badger.

Harry had to force himself not to take a look and continue walking, thinking the Hufflepuff student would use the free lesson to catch up on some work, and decided to check the library first.

A group of Hufflepuffs who would have been in Herbology were sat in the back of the room, and Ryou was sat on his own at another table, but there was no sign of Justin. He inadvertently eavesdropped on their conversation as he went through the invisibility section.

"I told Justin to hide in the dorms. I mean to say if Potter's marked him as his next victim it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course Justin's been waiting for something like this to happen since he let slip to Potter that he was muggle born."

"You defiantly think it was Potter then, Ernie?"

"Hannah, he's a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that's the mark of a dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself serpent-tongue." There were some murmurings at this, "Remember what was written on the wall? **Enemies of the Heir, Beware!** Potter and his friend, Muto, had some sort of run in with Filch and next thing we know, Filch's cat is attacked. Creevey and Hawkins was annoying Potter and Muto at the Quidditch match and then both of them are attacked. The only reason I don't think it's Muto is because of the way he froze in fear in front of that cobra, if he could control Slytherin's monster then he wouldn't have any trouble controlling that snake."

"Potter always seemed so nice though, and he got rid of You-Know-Who. He can't be all bad, can he?" Hannah said uncertainly.

"No one really knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who…" Ernie continued, Harry was getting more and more angry and as Ernie finished he stepped out from behind the bookshelf. The Hufflepuffs's looked as though they'd been petrified by the sight of him.

"Hello," Harry said, "I'm looking for Justin." The Hufflepuffs looked fearfully at Ernie.

"What do you want with him?" Ernie asked.

"I want to tell him what really happened at the Duelling Club."

"We were all there, we saw what happened."

"Then you noticed that, after I spoke to it the cobra backed off."

"All I saw was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake towards Justin." Ernie said stubbornly.

Harry and Ernie's debate went on and Harry stormed out of the library and bumped into Hagrid.

* * *

Up in the Common Room, Yugi's head had shot up and Joey had to chase the hikari as he grabbed his deck and dashed out of the room. "Yugi, wait up!" Yugi didn't pay any attention, the link with Yami had gone dead and Boh was panicking, unable to reach the Dark Magician.

 _Joey, the voice is back._ Red Eyes Black told him as he followed his friend round a corner. _Be careful. Mahado was last sensed around where we can hear it. Coming to the Pharaoh's aid._

Catching up with Yugi as he turned a corner, he saw Yugi fall to his knees beside the victims of the latest attack; tears running down his face. Harry was stood stock still in shock.

Nearly Headless Nick was floating just off the ground, no longer white, but black and smoking. Justin Finch-Finely was led on the ground directly behind the ghost, petrified, but it was the last victim that had caused Yugi's distress, Yami was on the ground, petrified. Mahado, the Dark Magician, was close to collapse, without Yami, the magic supporting the monster was nearly out. "Yami… please, wake up!" Yugi practically screamed, shaking the Pharaoh. "Yami…!"

"Yugi…" The Dark Magician spoke verbally, Yugi's head snapped up, tears still flowing as he looked into Mahado's eyes, "Be strong." The Dark Magician fell, exhausted and unable to maintain consciousness any longer. Yugi's anguish passed through the link with Boh, right through to everyone with a real live Duel Monster in their little group.

Yugi closed his eyes and Joey had the scare of his life, as Yugi collapsed on the spot, still sending despair and fear, so acute that it hurt the rest of the gang and their Duel Monsters, down the link with Kuriboh.

Yugi opened his eyes in the corridor between his and Yami's soul rooms. His soul room was untouched, but the once Bronze door leading to Yami's room and the puzzle that was the Pharaoh's mind was marble grey, and as hard as Yugi tried he couldn't open it. He tried everything he could but the door wouldn't open.

"Yugi? Yugi, you alright pal?"

"No!" Yugi wanted to scream at the voice that echoed down the corridor, he wanted to find out who had done this and then make sure they couldn't hurt anyone else. How could he be alright when his dark half was petrified? Yugi followed the voice out of the corridor.

Joey shuddered and backed away very quickly, as Yugi picked himself up. Tears were running down his face still, but the look in his eyes was very much a Yami type look and he wasn't talking Yami on a good day, this was a 'Yami-after-the-blood-of-someone-who'd-hurt-Yugi' type look. In all honesty it scared Joey considerably, he'd never seen Yugi look at anyone like that before, not that the look was focused on anyone in particular, there was no one for Yugi to vent on, they only thought they knew who the attacker was, they weren't sure.

"Yugi?" Joey asked, warily approaching the boy, Yugi turned to him, and for a spilt second the glare was focused on him, and then Yugi's angry gaze dissolved and Yugi burst into loud sobs again. Joey wasn't sure if he was relived or not as he went over to comfort his best friend.

"It's not fair."

"None of this is." Joey said, holding his friend tightly, Yugi buried his face in Joey's chest. Peeves shot out of a room next to Harry.

"Why it's potty wee Potter!" cackled Peeves, who'd spotted Harry first, "What's Potter and friends up to? Why're they lurking…" He spotted the victims and in seconds his attitude had changed. He filled his lungs up with air and before Harry could stop him shouted at the top of his voice. "ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAAACK!"

Crash… crash… crash, door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out. For a minute there was too much of a crowd and the victims were in danger of being kicked. Yugi pulled away, tears still running down his face, the glare was back again as he saw people weren't watching what they were doing. "BACK OFF!" He shouted, the Millennium Puzzle glowed gold and a burst of golden magic pushed the students away as Professor McGonagall rushed down the halls.

"Caught in the act!" Ernie yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Harry.

"That'll do, MacMillan!" said Professor McGonagall. Peeves burst into song.

" **Potter, you rotter, oh what have you done?**

**You're killing off students, you think it's good fun…"**

"That's enough Peeves. Mr Wheeler, if you could escort Mr Muto up to the hospital wing with the victims." Joey nodded and led Yugi up to the hospital wing, as Harry was led to Professor Dumbledore's office and the victims were carried up to the hospital wing by other Professors. Once there Yugi burst into tears again and Joey comforted him as the small boy cried himself out.

Yugi looked back to Yami as his tears dried up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "You'll be fine, Yami. I know you will!" Yugi said, determination in his voice, "And we will stop whoever did this!" Joey smiled gently at his friend, watching as Yugi's game face came on, he knew the boy was still upset but this was the reaction he'd expected from Yugi. The scary, glaring Yugi from earlier was gone, replaced by the Yugi, Joey knew and respected, who was determined not to let Yami's attacker go unpunished.


	12. The Shadow Game

Harry and Professor McGonagall arrived at Professor Dumbledore's office. Harry briefly wondered how Yugi was then McGonagall left him alone in the office and his nerves kicked in, he had a gut feeling he was about to be kicked out of the school. Harry spotted the Sorting Hat and he took it off its shelf and tried it on again.

"Bee in your bonnet, Potter?"

"Er, yes," Harry muttered, "Er, sorry to bother you… I wanted to ask…"

"If I put you in the right house? I remember sorting your year well Potter, I still can't believe there were two of you who would do so well in Slytherin and turned it down, but I stand by what I said, you both would have done well in the serpent's house."

"Two of us?" Harry asked, a little startled, who else would have done well in Slytherin in his year that wasn't? The Sorting Hat was silent, unwilling or unable to give anymore information. Harry pulled it off his head, could this second person be the Heir of Slytherin?

"You're wrong about me." Harry said, backing away from the Sorting Hat. A strange gagging sound behind him made him wheel around.

Standing on a golden perch behind the door was an ancient looking bird which resembled a half plucked turkey. It made the gagging noise again and to Harry it looked very ill. Harry was just thinking the last thing he needed was for Professor Dumbledore's pet bird to die while he was in the room when the bird burst into flames.

Harry yelled in shock and backed away quickly, looking around for a glass of water but didn't find one. The bird meanwhile had turned into a fireball; giving one last loud shriek and then there was nothing left of it but a pile of ash. At that point the door opened and a very sombre Professor Dumbledore walked in to the office.

"Professor!" Harry gasped, "Your bird… I couldn't do anything… it just burst into flames!" To Harry's astonishment Dumbledore smiled.

"About time too, he's been looking dreadful for days, I've been telling him it's time to get a move on." He chuckled at the stunned look on Harry's face. "Fawkes is a bird that your friends, Yami Muto and Ombre Ironhide, might recognise very well, Harry, he is a Phoenix. They burst into flame when it is time for them to die, and are reborn from the ashes, watch…"

Harry looked down in time to see a chick poke it's head out of the ashes. "It's a shame you had to see him on his burning day, Harry, he's normally most handsome with wonderful red and gold plumage. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy load, their tears have healing properties, and they make extremely faithful pets."

In the shock of Fawkes catching fire, Harry had forgotten why he was there, and it only came back to him as Dumbledore sat down at his desk. However before he could say anything the office door slammed open and Hagrid rushed in. "It wasn't Harry!" said Hagrid urgently, "I was talking to him second before Yami and the other kid were found, he never would have had time sir..." Dumbledore tried to say something but Hagrid continued, "It can't've been him, I'll sware it before the Minestry of Magic if I have too…"

"Hagrid, I…"

"Yeh've got the wrong boy, sir. I know Harry never…"

"HAGRID!" Dumbledore said loudly, "I do not think that Harry attacked those people."

"Oh." Hagrid said, deflated, "I'll just wait outside then." He shut the door behind him, completely embarrassed.

"You don't think it was me, Professor?" Harry repeated hopefully.

"No, Harry, I don't but I have to ask you, is there anything you'd like to tell me…?"

* * *

Yugi was sat by Yami's bedside, Joey stood behind him, "I can't stand just watching him like this, knowing I can't do anything but wait!" Yugi whispered, tears threatening to come again. Joey laughed bitterly.

"You wanna know something, Yuge?" He asked, "Those were his words exactly last year after Voldemort injured your spirit and you were out of it for days, except instead of being close to tears, Yami almost exploded in frustration." Yugi looked up at Joey, startled, "You two are more alike then you give yourself credit for, Yuge." Yugi sighed and looked back to Yami, Joey looked at him and put his hands on his shoulders, "Come on, pal. You can't help him here," Yugi looked up at him, "I know you don't want to leave his side, but Madam Pomfrey will chase us out in a minute anyway. Come on, I'll walk you to class."

The quadruple attack on Yami, Mahado, Justin and Nearly Headless Nick turned what had been nervousness into real panic. There was almost a stampede to book tickets on the Hogwarts Express. "At this rate it's only going to be us and Malfoy's crew left here for Christmas. What a jolly holiday it's going to be."

"Do you think I could give our seats to someone else and **not** go home for Christmas?" Kari asked, she'd heard from Ash who'd sent her an e-mail, thank Ra for her studies over the summer, finding her a spell that would give her and Kaiba internet connection, saying Robyn was away for the holiday so she wasn't looking forward to going back. Ombre glared at her, and Kari sighed, "Guess not."

Harry was glad there'd only be a few people at Hogwarts over Christmas, he was fed up of people skirting away from him, or telling Yugi to be careful that Harry didn't attack the surviving twin, or Bakura congratulating him and asking whether Harry could petrify the other 'twin' to make his life easier.

Fred and George found this all very funny though, and went out of their way to march ahead of Harry and the gang, shouting, "Make way for the Heir of Slytherin! Seriously evil wizard coming through!" Harry didn't mind this, it meant someone else took it as a joke and understood that Harry wasn't really the Heir. However their antics seemed to aggravate Draco Malfoy, who looked increasingly sour every time he saw them at it.

"It because he's dying to say it's him and Bakura's only asking you for effect." Joey said knowingly, "You know how he hates anyone beating him at anything and you're getting the credit for his dirty work."

"Not for long," Said Hermione, in a satisfied tone, "The Polyjuice potion's nearly ready. We'll be getting the truth out of him any day now."

* * *

At last the term ended, and though they were two friends short, the gang found the castle peaceful, rather then gloomy, and they enjoyed the fact that they and the Weasleys had the run of the Gryffindor Common Room and no one was there that didn't know the Japanese students secrets so they could do pretty much anything they wanted. Resulting in Duels and games of exploding snap were played loudly without bothering anyone, while they practised wizard duelling and Joey was teaching Yugi and Harry how to fight, but with fists instead of wands. The only Weasley who wasn't having fun was Percy, who deemed even the teenager's behaviour as 'rowdy,' and didn't spend much time in the Common Room with them, he said he had only stayed here to keep up his duties as Prefect.

The only eventful thing that happened between school ending and Christmas day was a letter from Kari and Ombre arriving begging them to save the pair from Kari's parents.

Christmas morning dawned, cold and white, and the boys in Harry's dorm were woken up way too early, by Hermione, who burst in with all their gifts.

"WAKE UP!" She said loudly, opening the curtains at all the windows. The others groaned and Yugi rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

"Hermione! You're not supposed to be in here!" Joey groaned as he shielded his eyes against the light."

"Merry Christmas to you too." Hermione said, throwing everyone their presents, leaving Yami's on the bed. Yugi sat up as his landed on the foot of his bed, and looked over at Yami's bed, tears welling up. Yugi opened his slowly, unlike last year. There was more then enough chocolate to feed the whole of Gryffindor House but Yugi was in no mood to eat it, deciding to save it for when Yami was up and about again.

Joey watched his best friend, as Hermione spoke again, "I've been up for nearly an hour stirring adding more lacewings to the Polyjuice potion, it's ready."

"Good!" Yugi said with more then a little venom in his voice, stunning the gathering of friends slightly, he'd been getting more and more like this as the week had continued.

"If we're going to do it, it should be tonight." Hermione said, noting the way Joey had gone over and put his hands on Yugi's shoulders.

No one, not even the group who were dreading the thought of three of their number taking the Polyjuice potion later on, could fail to enjoy the Christmas dinner.

Joey's enjoyment was dimmed by Yugi pushing food round his plate instead of eating it. "It won't eat itself, you know." Yugi looked up at him sadly, "You won't get him back any faster by starving yourself."

Yugi shoved his fork into a piece of turkey and ate slowly. Joey sighed, at least the kid was eating. Dumbledore led them in a few of his favourite carols after dinner, and Harry laughed as Joey ended up bright red, he'd had a sip of their 'Strawberry juice' and it most defiantly wasn't, it was red wine. Yugi hadn't touched the wine but was nursing a butterbeer, staring into the golden liquid.

Hermione dragged them out of the room as Joey, Ron and Harry finished their third helpings, to finalise the group's plan for this evening. Yugi slipped off while they were planning, Joey noticed and followed his friend, as Harry, Ron and Hermione went to put their plan into action, he had an idea where Yugi would be.

Joey rushed round the corner of the corridor leading to the hospital wing and froze, a bubble, like one Pegasus had created to trap Yugi when he'd turned their duel into a shadow game, was blocking the passageway. This had to be Bakura's doing, he growled, wondering if his best friend was stuck inside with the deranged Tomb Robber.

* * *

Malfoy looked around, wondering what the hell Muto had done. It was cold and dark and something was draining him, and he didn't know what. "What did you do?" He growled at the small boy, who seemed to be glowing with dark energy.

"It's your fault Yami is petrified, admit it!" Yugi growled, Malfoy backed away as the energy surrounding the hikari grew brighter. "What did he ever do to you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Liar!" Yugi growled again, "It's your fault! You released whatever attacked him!"

Malfoy got it, "You think I'm the Heir of Slytherin?" He laughed, "While I'm flattered, I'm not the one who attacked your precious Pharaoh."

"But I bet you know who did." Yugi was still glaring at Malfoy, even with his denial.

"The real Heir of Slytherin." Malfoy said, "I don't know who he is, father wouldn't tell us." Malfoy drew his wand and pointed it at Yugi's chest, "Now what ever you've done, you freak, fix it!" He fired off a spell at Yugi, who drew his wand and fired one back at him. The two spells nullified each other and left sparks which dissipated in the darkness.

"This is a Shadow Game, it won't end until one of us loses. And we're fighting a Wizard's Duel." Yugi said.

"A game? You're nuts!" Malfoy shouted, his headache was terrible. Yugi just smiled dangerously. "What happens if I beat you?"

"Then I'm fair game. But if I win you'll leave the group alone, and tell whoever's petrifying students to stop!"

"I don't know who it is!"

"It's someone in your house and you will tell them to stop when I win!" Malfoy nodded, he wouldn't lose, then Muto would pay dearly. They stared each other down, and Malfoy attacked first…

* * *

Joey watched as the Shadow bubble vanished, but instead of seeing Bakura and Yugi like he'd expected, Yugi was stood with his back to him, while on the floor was… "What did you do?" Malfoy was unconscious.

"Nothing he didn't deserve." Yugi said, wavering on his feet, Joey caught him as he started to fall.

"Have you ever pulled something like that before?" Yugi shook his head weakly, Joey supported him as Yugi passed out, "Damn it, I can't take him to the hospital wing…" He froze as Crabbe and Goyle walked down the corridor, "Uh oh!"

"Joey? What happened here?" Crabbe asked, it sounded remarkably like…

"Harry? Then the potion worked?" Crabbe nodded. Joey's head shot up as he heard footsteps, "We've got to get out of here, if they find us… unless…"

Percy Weasley walked around the corridor and was greeted by a sight which caused him to start yelling, Joey Wheeler was being restrained by Crabbe while Goyle was stood over an unconscious Yugi, who looked like he'd been hit by a few spells, while Malfoy was on the floor, his wand had rolled away from his hand.

"What's going on here? You, Crabbe, let go of Wheeler! Goyle get away from Muto. Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy when he wakes up, have detention, it's obvious the three of you ganged up on Joey and Yugi. You two will come with me to fill out detention forms. Joey, can you get them up to the infirmary?" Joey nodded, Percy strolled away with Harry and Ron, or Crabbe and Goyle. Joey left Malfoy outside the Infirmary door and carried Yugi up to Gryffindor tower, glad that the halls were practically empty because almost everyone had gone home for Christmas, and that his friend was small and light.

Harry and Ron returned to the Common Room and met up in the dorm, Joey had put Yugi to bed and Harry and Ron explained what had happened. "…it's so perfect, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle will have to do detention for bullying, when we staged the whole thing! Just one thing, what actually happened?"

"I think Yugi used Shadow magic on Malfoy, I think he played a Shadow Game with him."

"Did Yugi…?"

"No, he won, or at least I think he won, but he's never tried anything like that before, it drained him." Joey continued. Yugi groaned and sat up slowly, like he was sore all over.

"It's not Malfoy…" Yugi stated, making them all jump. "He doesn't know who it was." Yugi groaned and led back down, "Ow, my head."

"Yugi!" Joey called, rushing over, "You alright pal?"

"How do you know it's not Malfoy?" Harry asked, concerned but wanting to know the full story.

"I got it out of him." Yugi said quietly, "He claims his father hasn't told either him or Bakura anything, and that he doesn't know who the Heir of Slytherin is."

"What's with you Shadow Gaming someone, you've never…"

"I… I…" Yugi stuttered, unsure of how to go on, but then it all came out in a rush, "Do you think I went too far? I went too far didn't I? But he said… it doesn't matter what he said, it matters what I did…" Yugi dissolved into tears.

"Yugi…" Joey started, unsure what to say.

"I want Yami back!"


	13. Turbans, Diarys and Dragons

Hermione hadn't returned with Harry and Ron for a very good reason, her Polyjuice potion had ended up with a cat's hair in instead of the hair of the Slytherin girl it was supposed to have and because of this she was in the hospital wing for several weeks, so she wasn't in the Gryffindor Common Room the day Kari and Ombre returned from spending the Summer at Kari's parent's house.

"How was your Christmas?" Harry asked as Kari collapsed into a comfortable chair by the fire.

"We learnt something new." Kari answered, closing her eyes as Ombre joined her by spreading out on the sofa nearby.

"Oh yeah, what's that?" Joey asked, puzzled.

"Men with turbans are nothing but trouble." Ombre growled, staring at the ceiling.

"Men with turbans?" Harry and Ron asked at the same time.

"Why? What happened?" Yugi's interest peaked.

"Yeah, first Quirrell and now some Egyptian guy with two Millennium Items!" Kari answered, opening one eye and staring at Yugi.

Yugi jumped, "You mean Shadi? What is he doing here?"

"I was not impressed, he tried to enter my mind." Kari replied, closing her eye and Ombre smirked slightly.

"Tried?"

"Well he couldn't get past Mana." Joey snorted in laughter at that. "Then he started to rant about how he was supposed to make sure the Millennium Items went to the right owners and how could he do this if monsters kept him from doing his duty. He did have a warning though, apparently our destinies have changed now that the spirits have their own bodies. But he wouldn't tell me how." Kari yawned.

"How can you be tired? You've just finished the Christmas Holidays!" Joey said, looking at Kari in surprise. Yugi was worried though.

"What do you mean 'our destinies have changed'?"

"That's what he said, right before he said he'd see you and the Pharaoh during the holidays since he was unable to trace us once we were at Hogwarts."

"He'd see us?" Yugi grimaced, every time Shadi came to see them things weren't good and trouble was often hanging around.

"Yeap, again didn't give any more info." Ombre said, rolling over so she could see the group clearly, "Questions. Where's Hermione and why was Bakura looking at us like he wanted to mutilate people?" Ron settled into explaining and Kari smirked when she heard what Yugi had done to Malfoy.

"OK, over reaction admittedly but do you realise that that means you won the bet we made last year, Yugi?"

Yugi looked at her, while Ron had been explaining Kari had opened her eyes and was now watching Yugi attentively, "I do?"

"Yeap, first one to Shadow Game Malfoy got an all you can eat buffet on me." Kari laughed, "And no one got a chance last year."

"You never did say how life with your parent's was." Joey said, changing the subject after seeing the look on Yugi's face.

"Torture…"

* * *

A couple of weeks later the gang were on their way back from dropping off Hermione's homework, Ron and Hermione had had an argument over the fact Hermione was sleeping with a 'Get Well card' from Lockheart, under her pillow.

"Ahhh, how much homework can one teacher give?" Joey yelled, thinking of all the homework Snape had set them.

"I think it's probably his way of paying the whole of Gryffindor house back for Yugi and Malfoy's 'fight' over the Christmas Holidays." Harry said, he could hear someone cursing loudly. "That's Filch isn't it?" He asked as they went up the stairs and out of sight. They stopped and listened hard.

"You don't think someone else has been attacked, do you?" Ron asked tersely.

"No, the dragons would have tried to warn us." Ombre answered with more confidence then she felt. They heard Filch's footsteps recede and then a distant door slammed. They poked their heads round the corner, Filch had been patrolling his usual post, and they saw at a glance what he'd been ranting about. A huge flood of water was spread over half the corridor, and was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now Filch had stopped shouting they could hear Moaning Myrtle's wails.

"Now what's up with her?" Ron asked. Joey shrugged, confused.

"Let's go see." Harry said, and holding their robes up, the entire group stepped through the puddle and into the bathroom. It was dark and the floor was soaked. "What's up, Myrtle?"

"Who's that?" Glugged Myrtle miserably, "Come to throw something else at me?"

Harry waded over to her cubicle and said, "Why would I throw something at you?"

"DON'T ASK ME!" Myrtle shouted, emerging from the toilet with a wave of yet more water, drenching Yugi, who'd followed Harry, in the process. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…"

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," Said Harry reasonably, "It would go right through you wouldn't it?" Joey in the meantime was trying not to laugh at Yugi whose robes were soaked, and his spiky hair was drooping, the proverbial drowned rat.

Unfortunately Harry had said the wrong thing; Myrtle had puffed herself up and was shrieking at him, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle because she can't feel it! Ten points if you get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha ha, a lovely game, I don't think!"

"Who threw it?" Yugi asked; ignoring the debate that was now going on between Ron and Joey about how many points you'd get for throwing things through various parts of Moaning Myrtle and the fact Joey was trying not to laugh at the fact he was soaked.

"I don't know, I was just sitting in the U-bend thinking about death and it fell right through my head," Said Myrtle, glaring at him, "It's over there, it got washed out."

Harry and Yugi looked over to the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin, black book lay there. It was shabby and as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Ombre stepped forward to pick it up, and Ron and her got into an argument why she shouldn't pick it up. Kari sighed and, ignoring Ron's complaints, picked up the book. "We won't know, if we don't look."

It was a diary, and the faded year on the cover told her it was fifty years old. She opened it eagerly, and on the front page she could just about make out the name, T.M. Riddle in smudged ink."

"Hang on," Joey said, who'd approached cautiously and was looking over Kari's shoulder, "I know that name, they got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."

"How'd you know that?" Kari asked, surprised.

"Because Filch made me shine that one for an hour." Joey growled, "If you'd been polishing something for an hour you'd remember the name too."

The pages were completely blank and Kari put it down on the sink next to her. Harry picked it up and pocketed it, noticing that the diary had been brought from a muggle shop meaning Riddle must have been muggle-born. Ron had spotted him pick it up and spoke to him quietly as they left, "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose." Harry waited but didn't throw it, catching up with his friends as they went back up the stairs.

* * *

On the first Saturday of February, Hermione left the hospital wing de-whiskered, tail-less and fur-free. They planned to celebrate in the Common Room and were just about to say the password to open the portrait when Kaiba rushed past franticly, knocking Yugi over as he passed. Yugi groaned and sat up, as Kaiba stopped. "Oi, mutt, tell me you've seen the hatchlings."

"Oh of course I've seen them, it's not like anyone can keep me away, even if **someone** keeps trying."

"I mean, have you seen the hatchlings since they disappeared around lunchtime?"

"What? They're missing? We gotta find them!" Joey panicked, "Where have you searched so far?"

"The entire wing for the Monsters, Ravenclaw house, Mokuba's checked Gryffindor house, the Hufflepuffs have searched their house, the Slytherins were rude to me," Kaiba scowled, "But say they don't have one of the hatchlings, though I'm not inclined to believe them… Kisara, Shadowfae and Tobias have all gone looking for them, the fuzzball was with you and Mana won't leave the Dark Magician's side."

 _Does anyone else notice he used the names of all the other monsters but Yugi and Yami?_ Kari thought, "Did you search the girl's side of Ravenclaw's dorms?"

"No, I had the girls do it for me." Kari laughed at this.

 _Mistress, we have a visitor here, she just flew in the window._ Mana called to Kari.

"Well are you going to help or not?" Kaiba growled, "There's still the classrooms to search and the grounds and I don't have a clue how many more rooms there are in this place, I'm sure more appeared this year just to annoy me!"

"Found one!" Kari declared loudly, Joey and Kaiba both almost jumped her.

"Where?"

"Where do you think? She's in the infirmary."

"Ok, tell Mana to keep an eye on her until we can find the others." Kaiba directed. Kari nodded and relayed the message to Mana, who said she would. Then the gang scattered to look for the baby dragons.

Kaiba dashed down the stairs, and nearly crashed into Professor Snape who had something rather large and silver in his arms, "You found one!"

"Mr Kaiba, I suggest you teach this troublesome creature not to enter unless invited, and to stay out of my classrooms and office, next time it may get into trouble, as it was you're lucky I check my cauldron before getting started."

Joey rushed down to Hagrid's hut, the door was wide open and Hagrid poked his head out, "Ah Joey, glad ter see yer."

"Hagrid, have you seen the hatchlings?"

"Yeah, my little beauty flew down here 'bout lunch time. Dunno where the others are though." The hatchling poked it's head out of Hagrid's huge coat, and stared at Joey.

Just then they heard laughter coming from near the Whomping Willow. Joey rushed over and saw Yugi having trouble with the tree, and a little silver hatchling in it's branches. A bunch of Slytherins were laughing at him as he tried to get close enough to grab the baby dragon.

"Come down here now!" Yugi shouted. The hatchling looked at him and spread it's wings.

 _No,_ It shouted telepathically, _no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!_ Yugi grimaced. The Slytherins started laughing again. Yugi looked around and spotted Joey.

"Oh good, Joey, help." Yugi called, Joey ran over, "I think the tree likes it there, at least it's not trying to get rid of it and it won't let me anywhere near the hatchling."

"Do you know who's it is?" Joey asked, trying to get a good look at the hatchling, who was still 'shouting' that one word.

"It's Kaiba's, but I don't know how to get it out the tree." Yugi growled, the mental shouting was beginning to get on his nerves, "I think it only know how to say no. You think it'll listen to Kaiba?" Joey shrugged, and the tree lashed out at them, causing them to have to retreat further away and the Slytherins to laugh again.

"Or it's parents." Added Joey. He looked up as he heard a dragons roar he recognised all too well. Blue Eyes flew over the school and landed just out of reach of the tree.

 _Troublesome hatchling, come down now or it's no pudding for you._ She called, however the no's continued. So Kisara tried a different tactic, _Tree, I want my hatchling back. I promise to get rid of the meddlesome pests infesting your bark._ With these words the tree paused in it's attempts to clobber Yugi and Joey and a single branch grabbed the hatchling and handed it over.

The hatchling continued to shout, _No!_ over and over again apart from a small _What?_ As the tree first grabbed him.

The search continued until Dinnertime for the last hatchling, but the charcoal black remained unfound. By that point everyone was tired and hungry and even Kaiba was willing to stop and grab something to eat. Everything was quiet until the deserts arrived on the tables. Then there was a small mental cry of _Pudding!_ As a black blur shot down from the ceiling to land on the High Table and landed in…

A large bowl of rice pudding.

Snape was the only one who reacted quickly enough to stop himself from being covered in pudding by quickly hitting the floor as it dived. However the rest of the staff at the High Table was coated. After many minutes of silence the small dragon looked up and noticed Snape was the only teacher who hadn't gotten a share of the pudding. Joey gasped and got to his feet, rushing up to the High Table as the charcoal black dived on top of Snape, coating the Potion's teacher in Rice Pudding.

Joey pulled his dragon off, it was looking extremely pleased with itself as Dumbledore sent the pudding back to the kitchen. _No more? Not my fault! Where's pudding? PUDDING!_ He shouted as he noticed that while the High Table no longer had any the house tables did and the little black dragon escaped Joey's grasp and got some height before dived onto the nearest table… Slytherin.

The dragon landed in that bowl of rice pudding too, coating Malfoy, Bakura, Crabbe and Goyle, as well as any Slytherin surrounding them. Bakura got to his feet and picked the dragon up by the tail, wheeling around to face Joey, the dragon bit him, causing Bakura to let go, and flew out of the way of the many hands that were trying t catch him and landed on the Hufflepuff table where no one was expecting him.

The Hufflepuffs had caught on by this point and those nearest the rice pudding dived out of the way as it landed, Ryou tried to grab it as it took off again, but to no avail, as it dived onto the Gryffindor table, and Yugi got coated but managed to grab the little dragon. _Pudding!_ The dragon called, licking it off of Yugi who smiled. _You nice boy, you have chocolate, can I have some? Please? I be good! Give me chocolate! I'll be good!_ The dragon pleaded with Yugi. The small boy looked up at Joey.

Yugi laughed and pulled a chocolate frog out of his pocket, how the dragon had known it was there he had no idea, but he extracted a promise from the dragon. "You'll be good?"

_Yeap. Me good dragon. Not like No._

"No?" Yugi asked, confused. The dragon began to chant, _No. no. no, no, no._ "Oh that No." Joey smiled gratefully at Yugi as he lead the little charcoal black out the great hall. As they got into the main hall, Yugi handed over the chocolate and the dragon snapped it up. _Tired now. Sleepy. Go home?_ Yugi smiled and nodded, the sleepy hatchling fell asleep in Yugi's arms. He carried the dragon up to the monster's wing.

Harry showed Hermione the diary that evening, but she was convinced it was blank. Harry kept it anyway.


	14. Valentine's Day and a Secret Diary

Once the sun began to shine on Hogwarts the mood of most of the castle grew more hopeful. There had been no more attacks since Yami, Nearly Headless Nick, Justin and Mahado, and they were pleased to find out that it shouldn't be too much longer before they were ready to be used in the antidote.

Most of the school were of the opinion that the Heir of Slytherin had gone into hiding, however Ernie MacMillan of Hufflepuff wasn't of the same opinion, he was still certain Harry was to blame, saying he'd 'given himself away' at the Duelling Club and when questioned why Harry would attack Yami, told everyone that Harry saw Yami as a threat to his Quidditch career, since they were both Gryffindor Seeker, so Harry had tried to get rid of him. He had also taken to telling Yugi, every time he saw him, that Yugi should be careful in case Harry decided to attack the remaining twin.

Gilderoy Lockheart had successfully annoyed Yugi enough to make the small teen start to try to skip the fools classes, since Lockheart was convinced he was the one who'd made the attacks stop, telling everyone who'd listen that his prestige had scared off the Heir and that the petrified students were casualties of war. Joey was glad Yugi was skipping class and getting his notes from Kari, because he was certain another Shadow Game wouldn't have been far behind some of Lockheart's lesson, since he wouldn't stop talking about it. Harry overheard Lockheart saying that he was of the opinion that the school needed a moral boost to wash away the memories of last term.

Lockheart's idea of a moral-booster became clear at breakfast time on February the fourteenth. Harry and Yugi hadn't slept much the night before because of a late-running Quidditch practise and both rushed down to the Great Hall, slightly late. They thought for a moment that they'd walked through the wrong door. The walls were covered in large, lurid pink flowers and even worse heart shaped confetti was falling from the ceiling. They went over to the Gryffindor table, where Joey and Ron looked sickened and Kari, Ombre and Hermione were very giggly.

"What's going on?" Yugi asked, as he sat next to Joey and wiped confetti off his breakfast.

Joey and Ron pointed to the teacher's table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockheart was wearing robes the same colour as the decorations on the walls. The rest of the teachers didn't look too happy, in fact Snape looked as though he had been force fed a bottle of Skele-Gro.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockheart shouted, "And may I thank the forty-eight people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I took the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you and it doesn't stop there."

Lockheart clapped his hands and a dozen surely dwarfs, wearing gold wings and carrying harps walked into the great hall. Much to the student's surprise a group of dwarfs walked in with a humongous bag of cards. "These are my friendly card-carrying cupids, they will be roving around delivering your Valentines!" The dwarfs with the bag walked over to the Gryffindor table and Yugi yelped as they dumped the contents on top of him as Lockheart continued talking.

Yugi's head poked up from the top of the pile and he opened one. Yugi's eyes widened. "They've found me!" he squeaked, "The Fangirls have found me! I thought I was safe here! I thought I'd escaped all the Fangirls!" Yugi shook himself free of the cards and dashed out the door, yelling, "The Fangirls have found me, HELP!"

Bakura burst out laughing, he'd been annoyed that Yugi had gotten all those cards, but seeing the way the Pharaoh's runt had reacted was most defiantly funny.

Joey looked at the cards piled on top of his breakfast, "Should we open them for him?" Harry, who was sat across from Yugi, was watching Lockheart who was looking distinctly disgruntled about the sheer amount of mail that Yugi had received.

"We don't have time to open all of this," Hermione said, "We have class in a few minutes."

"I think we'd be better off burning it, since Yugi doesn't want it and we don't have time to open it for him."

"But there might be something important in there!" A small voice said from the other side of the table called. Joey looked around the pile and saw Ginny was sat on the other side.

"Ginny," Ron growled, "Please tell me you didn't send Yugi a card!"

"No, Ron." Ginny replied, noticing Kari's interested look, "I didn't send a card to **Yugi.** "

Kari snorted when Ron replied, "That's alright then." Ginny felt a blush rising as Kari looked at her as if to say, then-who-did-you-send-one-to. Kari's attention was distracted by a card landing on Joey's head, Joey picked it off and noticed it was addressed to him. Kari blushed bright red as he opened it.

"Are you alright?" Ombre asked, noticing Kari's blush. She saw a dwarf handing Ryou a card and went as red as her hikari. Joey looked up at Kari after reading it and the girl dashed out the door. Joey followed and Ombre went to but Ryou met her halfway down the hall.

"Can I talk to you?" He asked. Harry, Ron and Hermione passed them as the two were talking in the Great Hall. The others got away without getting Valentines, though they got a laugh out of the singing Valentine that Ginny gave to Harry. Joey and Kari wouldn't look each other in the eye and Ombre vanished with Ryou quickly after dinner.

* * *

Harry thought he would be first to bed that night, but there was someone else up in the dorm. "Yugi, are you awake?"

"No." Came the reply, "I'm not awake." Harry smiled, as he walked over to Yugi's bed and poked the boy who was hiding underneath the covers. Yugi sat up, and looked at Harry. "This is the only place I'm safe from the dwarfs!"

"Want to help me with the diary?" Harry asked, smiling. Yugi nodded and they sat on Harry's four poster bed. The diary was the only thing not covered in red ink so Harry and Yugi decided to try writing in it. "Our names are Harry Potter and Yugi Muto." The words faded away.

Words appeared in the same colour ink that Harry had used. "Hello Harry Potter and Yugi Muto. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?" These words too faded away but not before Harry was answering.

"Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."

The two boys waited eagerly for a reply. "Lucky, that I recorded my memories in a more lasting way then ink. But I always knew there were those who didn't want this diary read."

Yugi grabbed the quill off of Harry, "What do you mean?" He scribbled in first accidentally in Japanese, then in English.

"Which one of you is a foreign student?" Riddle asked, "As regards to your bi-lingual question, this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things which happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Harry snatched back the quill, "Yugi is from Japan, we're at Hogwarts now, and horrible stuff's been happening. Yugi's other half has been hurt. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"

Harry was watching the page closely as Riddle's reply came quickly, "Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. They told us it was a legend, that it didn't exist. But this was a lie, in my fifth year the chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the student who was involved and he was expelled. But the Headmaster forbade me from telling the truth and gave me a shiny trophy for my effort, but I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."

Harry nearly spilt the ink bottle in his rush to reply, "It's happening again now. There have been three attacks already, Yugi's partner was one of the victims, and no one knows who is behind it. Who was it last time?"

"If Yugi's 'other half' was only hurt and the Chamber has been opened again, then Yugi is very lucky not to have lost his partner. I can show you both if you like. You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you both inside my memory of the night when I caught him." Harry hesitated, looking at Yugi, who was staring at the diary hungrily, he looked back at the diary, where fresh words were forming. "Let me show you." Yugi nodded at Harry who looked at him then wrote two letters…

"OK."

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Yugi and Harry saw the little square for June 13th had turned into a miniature TV. Hands trembling slightly Harry raised it to their eye height and before they knew what was happening, they were tilting forward and they felt their bodies leave the bed and they were pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of colour and shadow.

Harry felt his feet hit the floor and stood shaking as the blurred shapes around him suddenly came into focus. Yugi was stood next to him, though the boy was panicking, "Harry! Where's my Puzzle?"

Harry's hand passed through a book he tried to pick up, Yugi saw this and wondered what was going on, they were stood in Professor Dumbledore's office. "Riddle only said he could transport the two of us, since the Millennium Puzzle is a powerful magical object I bet he couldn't bring it too. I bet it's with the diary." Harry said, thinking hard. Yugi nodded, not liking the fact he didn't have it with him.

Harry looked at Professor Dumbledore's desk, a wizened, almost bald, frail looking wizard, was reading a letter by the candlelight. Neither boy had seen the man before.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, "We didn't mean to butt in…" The wizard ignored him. "Sorry we disturbed you, we'll just go now!" Harry shouted, thinking the wizard was deaf. Still no reply.

Yugi looked around the office, no Phoenix, no whirling silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, meaning the wizard behind the desk was Headmaster and they, Yugi, and Harry, were little more then phantoms, completely invisible to the people of fifty years ago.

There was a knock on the office door.

"Enter." Said the old wizard in a feeble voice.

A boy about two years younger then Yugi, around 16, entered, taking off his hat. A silver prefects badge glinted on his chest. He was much taller then either boy, but like Harry, he had jet black hair. "Ah, Riddle." The Headmaster said.

"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" asked Riddle, he looked nervous.

"Sit down." Dippet said, "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."

"Oh." Said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.

"My dear boy," Said Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the Summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"

"No!" Said Riddle at once, "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts then go back to that – to that…"

"You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?" said Dippet curiously.

"Yes, sir." Said Riddle, reddening slightly.

"You are Muggle-born?"

"Half-blood, sir," said Riddle, "Muggle father, witch mother."

"And are both your parents…?"

"My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me, Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."

Dippet clicked his tongue sympathetically, "The thing is Tom," He sighed, "special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…"

"You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle, Yugi and Harry looked at each other and they moved closer, scared to miss anything. However, Dippet didn't have any more information and Harry and Yugi followed Riddle out. They chased him down the stairs until the reached the entrance hall where Riddle was talking to a younger version of Professor Dumbledore.

Riddle led them to the classroom where they had potions with Snape. The door was almost closed and someone was inside trying to get someone into a box, Riddle jumped round the corner, Harry and Yugi stepped out from behind him so they could see.

They could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box was next to it.

"Evening, Rubeus." Said Riddle sharply. The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.

"What yer doin' down here, Tom?" Riddle stepped closer.

"It's all over," Riddle said, "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."

"What d'yer…"

"I don't think you meant it to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for the exercise and…"

"It never killed no one!" Said the large boy, backing into the closed door. Harry could hear a funny clicking noise from behind the door.

"Stand aside!" Riddle growled, drawing out his wand. The spell he cast lit the corridor with a flaming light. The door behind the large boy was flung open at such a rate of knots it knocked him into the wall opposite. The thing inside vanished up the corridor and was gone before Riddle could catch it. The tall boy was stood in his way.

The room lurched, the two boys felt themselves falling and they landed on Harry's bed, the Millennium Puzzle was on the floor, Riddle's diary was on Harry's stomach. Before they realised what was happening Ron burst into the room, mock gagging. "There you two are, trust me, you don't want to go down there. What's up?" Ron asked, noticing the two boys were sweating.

"It was Hagrid, Ron. Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago…" Harry paused. "Wait, why don't we want to go down there?"

Ron shook his head and Yugi dashed out the door. He quietly walked down the steps, he couldn't hear anything, but that didn't mean anything. He turned the last corner and Yugi went bright red as he saw why Ron had told them not to go down there. There was only two people left in the Common Room and they were kissing. Yugi blushed and dashed back up the stairs, there was no way he was going to disturb them.

Five minutes later Joey walked into the dorm, looking extremely pleased with himself, but also slightly confused. Harry and Ron were looking at him like he was an alien from outer space while Yugi smiled at him, "We saw you!"

Joey went bright red, but smirked. "So?" Yugi just smiled and Harry and Ron weren't sure what to make of him as they got ready for bed. Joey was one of the last to fall asleep and was smiling.


	15. Cornelius Fudge

The Easter holidays came all too soon, and leading up to it, Harry and Yugi often wished they hadn't worked out the secrets of the diary. The gang were all too aware of Hagrid's liking for large and monstrous creatures, however they were equally certain that Hagrid wouldn't have tried to kill someone.

It was the first day of the holidays and the gang were sat in their usual seats by the lake, there were three major changes, one was that Yami wasn't there, another was that Kaiba and Mokuba had joined their little group, and had been told about the diary and what Yugi and Harry had found out, and the third was that that Kari was sat next to Joey, and the pair kept looking at each other and blushing and looking away whenever their eyes made contact.

Kaiba hadn't been happy about the fact his 'VR Department Head' was going out with the mutt but her work standard had increased since she'd been dating Wheeler, so he was willing to tolerate it. However this was just embarrassing. Kaiba scowled at the mutt, who put his arm around his girlfriend and smirked at Kaiba as Kari leant into him.

Yugi looked over to Ombre, who was watching the pair through narrowed eyes. The Princess spotted Yugi watching her and smiled at him, her expression changing instantly, and Yugi wondered what was going through her mind; he was sure that he'd seen envy on the Princess's face. _Yami would know,_ He thought, then a wave of depression washed over him and he retreated into his shell again.

"Riddle might have gotten the wrong person," Kari said, thinking.

"Maybe it was some other monster that was attacking people." Hermione agreed.

"How many monsters do you think this place can hold?" Ron asked dully.

"We always knew Hagrid had been expelled," Harry said miserably, "And the attacks must've stopped right after Hagrid was kicked out otherwise Riddle wouldn't have gotten his reward." He was still wondering who the other person that would have done well in Slytherin but had asked not to be sorted into that house was.

Joey tried a different tack, "Riddle does sound like Percy, who asked him to grass on Hagrid anyway?"

"But the monster had killed someone, what would we have done?" Kari said, closing her eyes.

"And Riddle was going back to some muggle orphanage, if they closed Hogwarts," Kaiba said, speaking for the first time, "I don't blame him for wanting to stay here."

Silence fell at that remark, it was common knowledge within the group that Kaiba and Mokuba had been adopted by Gosabora Kaiba, and most of what Yugi and the others knew about the way they had been treated had been told to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"Has anyone thought about the new choices for our classes next year?" Joey asked, changing the subject, "I'm not taking Divination or Muggle Studies."

"I'm taking everything." Hermione said, smiling, Kari opened her eyes.

"And that's supposed to surprise me?" The choices for classes was difficult, Hermione was the only one who wanted to take Muggle Studies, since the others were all either Muggle Born other then Ron, and though Yugi was a pure blood wizard he'd been raised as a muggle.

Harry and Joey were half tempted to ask if they could dump Potions. Unfortunately they weren't allowed to dump subjects they had to keep all their old subjects. Yugi and Kari wanted to dump something on top of Lockheart.

Joey and Kari were matching up all their subjects, and no one, not even Kaiba, dared ask what would happen if they ended up in a fight, while Harry and Ron took the same subjects, feeling that if they were bad at them, at least they'd be bad at the lessons together.

* * *

Friday evening, Yugi and Harry were retuning from the last Quidditch practise before their match tomorrow, Yugi wasn't due to play but he had to practise in case someone became too injured to continue.

Neither of them were unsure of their chances of victory in the next days match. But were shocked when they returned to the dorms, Harry and Yugi's stuff had been strewn all over the floor, their cloaks lay ripped on the floor and their bed coverings were pulled off. Joey was fuming. "We don't know who did it, we just found…" Harry dashed in and searched frantically, "Someone must have been looking for something."

"And they found it," Harry groaned, "Riddle's diary is gone."

"What?" Ron growled. Harry and Yugi tidied up then they went down to where the three girls were reading. They looked aghast at the news.

"But only a Gryffindor could have stolen… no one else knows our password, not even Ryou." Ombre said, shocked.

"Exactly." Harry replied.

* * *

They force fed Yugi and Harry breakfast the next day, before heading out to the Quidditch pitch, Kaiba and Mokuba joined them at the Great Hall's doors. Joey, Ombre and Kaiba's heads shot up as their dragons gave them a warning, and Harry heard the voice again.

"It was the voice again." Hermione, Kari and Kaiba looked at each other and then shot off, leaving Ombre with the Millennium Orb, just in case something happened at the match. "Where are they going?"

Joey shrugged, then Kari dashed back down, kissed Joey and dashed off again. Joey melted on the spot and the others grinned. The two players collected their brooms and headed off to the match. Harry couldn't take his mind off the voice, his only comfort was that everyone was outside, watching the match.

Joey watched as Professor McGonagall ran out onto the Quidditch pitch but was distracted by his Red Eyes Black Dragon's roar and he looked up in time to see Mana, Kari's Dark Magician Girl, collapse on the dragon's back. Kisara fell out of the sky, and was caught gently by Shadowfae, Ombre's face had gone pale and drawn. "No…" Joey murmured as he got up, Joey and the rest of the gang rushed onto the pitch as McGonagall was talking to Harry.

"Yes, I think it would be best if the entire group came too, especially you three." She said, pointing out Joey, Ombre and Mokuba. The gang followed her to the Hospital wing, and she stopped before she opened the door. "I must warn you this may come as a shock, there's been another attack, another triple attack."

The gang gulped as Professor McGonagall opened the door. Mokuba looked around and rushed in. "Nooooooooooooo, Seto! Seto, wake up!" The small boy shouted.

"Kari!" Ombre rushed over, Joey not that far behind, "Kari please…" Ombre knelt by her light's bed, and put the rope tied to the Millennium Orb over Kari's head and closed her eyes, arriving in the corridor between their soul rooms. Ombre tired to budge Kari's door open, but the once wooden carved door, was as solid as stone, and as grey as slate. Ombre only gave up when she bounced off Kari's door and hit her own.

Ombre returned to her own body, and took the Orb off of Kari. Her eyes had hardened as she saw the other victim, Harry and Ron were gathered around Hermione's bed. Three of their friends attacked on one day, someone was out to get them, that much was obvious.

"Miss Granger and Miss Ironhide were carrying mirrors and Mr Kaiba was reaching for his Duelling deck, have you any idea why?" The gang shook their heads and Professor McGonagall led them back to the Common Room.

"All students will return to their house common rooms by six o'clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch practise and matches are postponed, and there will be no more activities."

The gang were sat near the window in stunned silence, four of their number had fallen now, it was obvious someone was targeting them, but that had to make it someone who hated them. Harry had shared his conversation with the sorting hat that there was someone in the year who would have done well in Slytherin, and his suspicions that this unknown student could be the heir of Slytherin. He omitted the fact that the hat wanted to put him there too.

Professor McGonagall left and Lee Jordan, the Weasley twins best friend, stood up, "That's four Gryffindors down, not including a Gryffindor ghost, two Ravenclaws and one Hufflepuff." He counted on his fingers, "Haven't any of the teachers noticed that the Slytherins are safe? The heir of Slytherin, the monster of Slytherin, why don't they chuck all the Slytherins out, starting with the Malfoys?" He was answered with cheers from all around the Common Room.

Harry was only half listening, he could get the image of his friends in the hospital wing out of his head, and if the attacks didn't stop soon, he'd be forced to live with the Dursleys for the rest of his life. Tom Riddle had turned Hagrid in because he was faced with the prospect of returning to a muggle orphanage, Harry now knew how he felt.

"What're we going to do?" Ron asked, he was leaning on the back of Yugi's chair, and looking at the ceiling. No one could look at Joey, Ombre or Mokuba, who were sat apart from the group, not really paying attention to anyone. Yugi was pale but spoke up.

"They might suspect Hagrid, we have to talk to him now." Yugi said firmly, "Before someone gets him to leave the grounds."

Harry nodded, "I don't think it's him this time," He said, looking over at his friends, "But if he set the monster loose last time he'll know how to get inside the Chamber of Secrets, and that's a start."

"But McGonagall said we've got to stay in Gryffindor tower unless we're in class." Ron said, looking around the Common Room.

"I think," Yugi said, even more quietly, "It's time to get your Dad's old cloak out again, Harry." Harry nodded.

Only Harry and Yugi snuck out after everyone had gone to sleep. Joey had gone up to the dorm almost straight away, while Ombre and Mokuba had fallen asleep by the fire after everyone else had gone up to the dorms. They used Harry's father's old Invisibility Cloak, which was the only thing Harry had inherited from his father.

The journey wasn't comfortable, Harry and Yugi, who had both been sneaking out to see the Mirror of Erised last school year, had never seen the halls so crowed after nightfall. It was a clear starry night and they could easily make their way down to Hagrid's lighted windows.

They pulled off the cloak, and knocked on the door, Hagrid flung it open and they found themselves face to face with a crossbow.

"Harry? Yugi? What are you two doing down here?" Hagrid asked, lowering the weapon.

"What's that for?" Yugi asked, as he and Harry stepped inside.

"Nothin'… Nothin'," Hagrid muttered, "I've bin expectin'… doesn't matter… sit down… I'll make tea."

Hagrid didn't seem to know what he was doing. He nearly extinguished the fire when he spilt water from the kettle on it, Yugi grabbed the kettle off of him, wincing slightly against the heat of the metal handle, while Harry looked for a seat that wasn't occupied by a silver dragon. Unfortunately that wasn't easy with it draping over three.

"Are you ok, Hagrid?" Harry asked, as Yugi put the kettle down and examined the red mark on his hand. "Did you hear about Hermione, Kari and Kaiba?"

"Oh, I heard, all righ'," Hagrid said, a tremor in his voice. Yugi poured them all a cup of tea, and Hagrid was just putting a slab of fruitcake on a plate when there was load knock at the door.

Yugi and Harry panicked, Hagrid dropped the fruitcake, "My dragon…" He hissed. Yugi and Harry pulled the dragon under the Invisibility Cloak and made it join them in a retreat into the corner, the dragon settled down to sleep again and Yugi and Harry ducked low so they could cover it. Once Hagrid was certain the three were sufficiently covered, he grabbed his crossbow and flung open the door.

"Good evening Hagrid." It was Professor Dumbledore, he entered, looking deadly serious and was followed by a short, odd looking man. The stranger was a short, portly man with rumpled grey hair and an anxious expression, he was looking around, as if expecting some sort of monster to jump out at him.

The dragon's tail slammed down on Yugi's foot and Harry had to clamp a hand over the boy's mouth to make sure he didn't cry out.

"Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic." The man introduced himself. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but this is very bad business, very bad, had to come. Three attacks, seven students petrified, it's gone far enough, the Ministry's got to act."

"I never…" Hagrid looked at Dumbledore imploringly, "You know I never, Professor Dumbledore… Sir…"

"I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence." Said Dumbledore, who was frowning at Fudge.

"Look, Albus," said Fudge uncomfortably, "Hagrid's record stands against him, Ministry's got to do something, there's even rumours flying around about dragons at Hogwarts. The school governors have been in touch."

"Yet again Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid away will not help in the slightest." His blue eyes were filled with the same sort of fire that scared the yamis, but much stronger then Harry or Yugi had ever seen before.

"Look at it from my point of view." Said Fudge, fidgeting with his bowler hat. "I'm under a lot of pressure, the Japanese Wizarding community have found out that the transfer students are being victimised, as are Muggle-borns, I've got to be seen doing something. If it turns out it wasn't Hagrid, he'll be back and no more said. But I've got to take him, got to. Wouldn't be doing my duty…"

"Take me?" said Hagrid, who was trembling, "Take me where?"

"For a short stretch only," said Fudge, who refused to meet Hagrid's eyes, "Not a punishment, more of a precaution. If someone else is caught, you'll be let out with a full apology…"

"Not Azkaban?" Croaked Hagrid. Yugi's eyes widened, his Grandpa had told him about Azkaban, the most feared wizarding prison in the world. Harry took his hand away from Yugi's mouth as there was a knock at the door. This time it was Yugi who clamped a hand over Harry's mouth, stopping Harry's audiable gasp, Lucius Malfoy was at the door. Fang started to growl and but fortunately the dragon was not waking up.

"Already here Fudge," He said approvingly, "Good, Good."

"What're you doing here?" said Hagrid furiously, "Get outta my house!"

"My dear man, please believe me, I have no pleasure at all in being inside your… did you call it a house?" Malfoy sneered. "I was told the Headmaster was here by the school."

"And what exactly did you want with me, Lucius?" Dumbledore said politely, though the fire was still burning in his eyes, Yugi wondered if Dumbledore knew he was radiating magic, though no one else seemed to feel it.

"Dreadful thing, Dumbledore," said Malfoy Sr., taking out a roll of parchment, "but the Governors feel it's time you step aside, this is an Order of Suspension – you'll find 12 signatures on it. How many attacks has it been now? Three more this afternoon, wasn't it?" Malfoy looked like he'd eaten a particularly gorgeous piece of chocolate cake, "The appointment or suspension of the Headmaster, is a matter for the Governors, Fudge." Lucius said as Fudge tried to say something. "And since Dumbledore has failed to stop these attacks… and you'll find all 12 signatures on the parchment."

Hagrid leapt to his feet, "An' since you can't blackmail them anymore, how many did you have to threaten before they agreed? Eh, Malfoy?"

"Dear, dear…" Lucius said, "That temper of yours will get you into trouble someday, Hagrid, I would advise you not to yell at the Azkaban guards like that. They won't like it at all."

"Yeh' can't take Dumbledore away!" yelled Hagrid, waking the dragon and causing Fang to wimper, "Take him away and the Muggle borns or the remaining transfer students won't stand a chance, there'll be killings next!"

"Calm yourself Hagrid." Dumbledore said sharply, "If the Goveners want my suspension then so be it," He hadn't taken his eyes off of Malfoy, "However," Dumbledore spoke slowly so no one would miss it, "You will find that I am only truly gone when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that Hogwarts will always give help to those who ask for it."

Yugi was convinced that Dumbledore had looked at them as they tried to get the dragon to stay still. Malfoy made a derogatory comment and then bowed Dumbledore out, following after the great wizard. Fudge waited for Hagrid to go, but he stood his ground. "If anyone wanted to find out some stuff, all they'd have to do would be ter follow the spiders. That'd lead them right! That's all I'm saying." Fudge stared at him in amazement.

"All right, I'm coming." Hagrid said, pulling on his mole skin coat, he stopped by the door, "An' someone'll need to feed Fang and Gale while I'm away." He said loudly.

The door banged shut and Yugi pulled off the invisibility cloak, "We're in trouble now." Harry said hoarsely, "No Dumbledore, they might as well close the school. There'll be an attack a day with him gone."

Yugi nodded, he didn't like the sheer volume of dark magic he'd been sensing from Lucius Malfoy, Fang had started to howl and scratch at the closed door. Yugi couldn't blame him.


	16. Aragog

Summer was creeping forward; most of the forwarded mail to Yugi was now invitations for the Summer tournaments, they had to assume Yami's mail was the same. The sky and lake turned from grey to blue, and giant flowers bloomed in the greenhouses. However with no Hagrid around the grounds, and their friends in the hospital wing, the castle didn't feel right to Harry and the others.

They'd tried to visit their friends but everyone bar Yugi and Ombre had been banned from the hospital wing and even the two of them had only been allowed in after they'd snuck into the infirmary two days into the ban and slept there over night. They'd been awoken the next morning by an angry Madam Pomfrey, who, when she'd calmed down, had felt sorry for them and lifted the ban for them alone.

With Dumbledore gone, fear was spreading around the castle faster then Bakura's Dark Necrofear could. The sun warming the castle seemed to stop at the window. There was barely a face to be seen that didn't look worried and tense. Ombre and Joey had taken to guarding over the rest of their friends, Yugi in particular. The group were quiet and subdued, everyone was feeling sorry for them but no one was sure what to say.

Harry constantly repeated Dumbledore's final words, he wondered who they were meant for and who exactly they were supposed to ask for help? Everyone was just as confused and scared as they were.

Yugi thought that the hint about the spiders would be easy to follow, but none of them could see a spider for miles. They looked everywhere they went. However they we hampered by the fact that they weren't allowed to wander off on their own, but had to move around with a pack of Gryffindors. Even when Yugi and Ombre went to the hospital wing on the night time, they had to be escorted by both their monsters and two teachers.

Only two people seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere of terror, one was Malfoy, who luckily was still under the effects of his Shadow Game with Yugi, and as such had to leave the gang alone. The other one, Bakura, had no such restraint. Harry was glad when Potions ended, Malfoy had been buttering up Snape all class, annoying the group of Gryffindor friends. "I'm quiet surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Bakura continued where his adopted brother left off, "Bet you Five Galleons the next ones dies. Pity it wasn't Granger, Ironhide or Kaiba."

The bell rang at that exact moment, which was lucky; at Bakura's words, Joey, Ombre and Ron had leapt of their stools, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, their efforts to reach Bakura went unnoticed.

"Let me at him." Joey snapped, as Harry, Neville, Dean, Seamus and a few other Gryffindors hung onto the arms of three. "I don't care, I don't need my wand, or a Millennium Item, I'm going to kill him with my bare hands." Yugi looked at him sharply, it didn't matter anyway, most of the Gryffindors knew about the Millennium Items by now, even if they didn't know the full story behind them. They knew what the golden objects carried around by 'the smallest Muto twin' and his friends were, and that they held some sort of magic.

It was only when Snape had lead the Gryffindors to Herbology and Joey, Ombre and Ron had stopped trying to get loose that Joey looked around and realised that someone wasn't with them.

"Where's Yugi?"

Yugi was glad he always carried his deck with him out of habit. The new one he'd created seemed to work fine, and he was glad Bakura hadn't seen it before.

Bakura smirked at him, "You know, little Yugi, I'm not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed."

"What do you mean?" Yugi asked defensively, well aware Bakura was blocking the only exit from Snape's dungeon.

"Well I never thought you had it in you." Bakura said, continuing to smirk, "I never would have thought that you would create a Shadow Game." Yugi took two steps back, right into a cauldron, as Bakura advanced towards him. "Draco's told me all about it, it and it's consequences."

"So?" Yugi asked, Bakura smirked at the quiver in Yugi's voice.

"So, I'm not sure whether to be impressed you actually did it, or annoyed that your first Shadow Game was against someone who's supposedly family now." Yugi darted for the door, he didn't like where this was going. Bakura was faster and grabbed Yugi's arm as he reached the door, pulling the boy back into the classroom. The Tomb Robber shut the door behind him. "I wasn't finished."

"What do you want then?" Yugi asked, as he attempted to yank his arm out of Bakura's grasp. The Slytherin released his arm and pushed Yugi backwards; he stumbled and fell backwards into a cauldron, bashing his head as he did so. Yugi groaned and got himself out, wondering which Bakura had pushed him.

"I believe, as your guardian would say, that you've 'trespassed into the soul' of my adopted brother," The shadows closed in around them, "And I believe the punishment for that was a Shadow Game…"

_Uh oh…_

* * *

Red Eyes roared, and Joey's head shot up, "Professor Sprout…" He called urgently. The Professor looked up walked over to him.

"Is something the matter Mr Wheeler?" She asked quietly, unfortunately, with the lack of usual banter going on around them, most of the class could hear them.

"I have to go back to Potions… I err… forgot something."

"I'm sure Professor Snape could…"

"No." Joey surprised her with the forcefulness of his reply, "I have to go there and get it now."

"Alright, but you're not to walk unaccompanied… Professor Snape?" She called, uncertain if he was still around. The teacher was nowhere in sight. "I'm sorry Mr Wheeler, but since he's not around… hey!" Joey pushed his way past Professor Sprout, leaving all his stuff behind, and raced back to the Potions classroom.

Joey stopped as he reached the door, "Not again." He moaned. He couldn't get in the room because of a large shadow bubble that had engulfed the classroom. "Yugi?" He called, and was promptly knocked on his arse by three toed fuzz ball. "GettoffameBoh!" Joey shouted quickly, the Kuriboh looked at him confused. "Get. Off. Of. Me. Boh." Joey said, slowly and clearly, Boh realised who he'd knocked down and got off quickly.

Joey got to his feet as the shadow bubble dissolved. He rushed into the classroom, where two badly injured teenagers were glaring at each other. "You got lucky this time, Muto." Bakura snapped, and took off. Yugi smiled weakly at Joey and put his amulet back on. Joey supported his friend as they made their way to the hospital wing. Joey looked at his friend cautiously.

"That wasn't mine, Joey." Yugi said, his voice laden with exhaustion. "Bakura wasn't too happy about my Shadow Game with Malfoy so he challenged me to one."

"And you won." Yugi nodded, opting to save his energy. "You're getting stronger, you know that don't you?" Yugi looked at him oddly, "Well think about it, when you duelled Pegasus, you were nearly lost to the Shadows, now not only can you survive a Shadow Game on your own, but you can create them too. Yami would be proud." Yugi smiled weakly, but tears ran down his face. Joey noticed, "It'll be Ok, you heard Madam Pomfrey yesterday, the antidote will be ready in the next couple of days." Yugi smiled, considerably happier at that news. Joey knocked on the infirmary door.

"No visitors!" Madam Pomfrey called through the door.

"Not a visitor." Joey called back. The door opened and Madam Pomfrey took in Yugi's condition and let them in.

* * *

Harry and the others were concerned when Yugi and Joey didn't join them in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and didn't return to the Common Room until late in the evening. Harry and Ron mentioned the fact they'd seen spiders during Herbology and that they were heading for the Forbidden Forest, then Yugi and Joey explained where they'd been. "So that's why Malfoy hasn't been doing anything to our little group. Are you alright?" Ombre asked, her hand on her dragon's head, Shadowfae was growling.

"Better then I was earlier." Yugi smiled, "Who's going out tonight then?"

"Madam Pomfrey is expecting me tonight." Ombre said, "I told her I'd be back, when I went to see Kari this morning, since the Potion should be ready tomorrow. I think she's assuming you'll be there too, Yugi. Professors McGonagall and Lockheart…" Ombre made a gagging noise, her infatuation with him had been quick and had ended on Valentines Day. "Are going to be here any minute to collect us. Oh, and you lost Gryffindor House twenty points for breaking school rules, Joey." Joey grimaced.

"It's probably better if you don't go out tonight anyway; you need to completely recover from your Shadow Game." Joey said, Yugi glared at him, "I mean, you're still tired, and if you go out tonight you won't recover your energy." Yugi nodded, not happy about missing a chance to find something out but acknowledging the truth of the matter.

"So me, you and Joey?" Ron asked Harry. Joey had to wonder about the fact Harry had kind of become leader of their group.

"You alright with that, Joey?"

"There was no way I was going to stay behind anyway." Joey said, causing Yugi to smile. At that moment of time the two Professors walked through the portrait hole and Ombre and Yugi got to their feet, Boh and Shadowfae following.

"Good luck." Yugi said as they left the Common Room.

* * *

It was well past midnight when Joey, Ron and Harry were left on their own in the Common Room. They slipped Harry's Invisibility Cloak on and went down to Hagrid's hut. There they were greeted by Fang, and Tobias, Joey's Red Eyes Black Dragon, joined them there too. Harry left the cloak at the hut and the five of them made their way into the forest.

Harry and Joey pulled out their wands and murmured, "Lumos!" causing a tiny light to appear at the end of their wands, just enough to let them watch the path for spiders.

"Good idea," Ron said, "I'd light mine too but it might blow us up." Joey took off his amulet, and shoved it in his pocket.

"I'd rather be the right size if we're gunna do this." He said, Ron wondered if Joey was aware his real form had grown over the school year. Harry just nodded and the three of them followed a bunch of spiders off of the path. They couldn't move so quickly now because of the roots and brambles. Tobias had given up flying with them and was now flying above the trees.

Joey froze and wheeled around, "Harry, Ron, get behind me."

"Why?"

"Shush, there's something moving." Joey snapped, Harry and Ron looked around, they couldn't see anything. Then from their right came a sudden blaze of light, so bright in the darkness that the three of them had to shield their eyes from the light.

"Harry! Joey!" Ron shouted, his voice breaking with relief, "It's the car!"

"What?"

"Come on!" He called, and they blundered towards the light. The car was badly scratched and smeared with mud, apparently it had taken to trundling around the forest on it's own, completely wild. Fang didn't like it and kept close to Harry. Harry and Joey stuffed their wands into their robes. "And we thought it was going to attack us!" Ron laughed, as he leant against the car.

Joey looked around, "Err guys, we've lost the spiders." Ron did speak, didn't move. His eyes were focused on a point about 20 feet above the forest floor, directly behind Harry, his face ashy white with terror. Harry didn't even have time to turn around. He felt something long and hairy grab him and lift him off the ground, so that he was hanging, face down. "Harry!" Joey yelled, and seconds later was hanging upside down too. The two boys struggled but in moments Ron too was suspended. The creatures carried them into the very heart of the forest.

Harry was dropped unceremoniously by the creatures carrying him, by this point he'd worked out that they were in fact GIANT spiders. Ron, Joey and Fang landed next to him, Tobias, the dragon, swooped down and stood between his human and the big spiders. Harry realised that the spider that had dropped him was saying something, though it was hard to hear because it clicked its pincers every time it talked. "Aragog!" It called, "Aragog!"

From the middle of the dusty, domed web that the spiders had brought them to, emerged a spider the size of a small elephant. There was grey on its body and it's eyes were milky white, "What is it?"

"Men." The spider that had captured Joey clicked.

"Is it Hagrid?" said Aragog, moving closer.

"Strangers." Clicked the spider who'd brought Ron.

"Kill them," Aragog said fretfully, "I was sleeping."

"We're friends of Hagrids!" Joey shouted, Harry and Ron shared panicked looks and Joey's heart was pounding in his chest.

Aragog paused, "Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before." He said slowly.

"Hagrid's in trouble," said Harry, breathing quickly, "That's why we've come."

"In trouble?" The ancient spider asked, Joey was certain there was concern in his voice, "But why has he sent you?"

"They think… up at the school, that Hagrid's been setting a… a… something on students. They've taken him to Azkaban." Aragog clicked furiously; the noise was echoed by all the spiders in the area, it made Joey feel sick with fear.

"But that was years ago," Aragog said fretfully, "Years and years ago. I remember it well. That's why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the chamber and set me free."

"And you… you didn't come from the Chamber of Secrets?" Asked Joey, cold sweat on his forehead, well aware the spiders were closing in.

"I!" Aragog clicked furiously, "I was not born in the castle. I can from a distant land. A traveller gave me to Hagrid, when I was in an egg. Hagrid was only a boy but he cared for me. He protected me when they thought that I murdered a girl in the school, but she was found in a bathroom and I never saw outside of my box. Hagrid's continued to help me as an adult. He found me a wife and as you can see, my family has grown. I have never killed anyone."

"But do you know what did?" Joey asked, "Because what ever it is, it's back and attacking people again…"

"We do not speak of it! We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid, though he asked, many times."

"We'll just go then." Harry said, backing away, well aware Joey was trying to count the spiders and losing count. The spiders were getting too close for comfort.

"Go?" Aragog said slowly, "I think not."

"But… But!"

"My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid on my orders. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it walks so willingly into our midst. Goodbye, friends of Hagrid."

Tobias took off as the spiders closed in, "Tobias, Inferno fire blast!" Joey yelled, his dragon started attacking the spiders. Harry pulled out his wand but was well aware there were just too many spiders. He was about to help Joey and Tobias when a loud, long note sounded, and a blaze of light flamed through the hollow.

Mr Weasley's car thundered down the slope, knocking spiders aside; several were thrown onto their backs. The car screeched to a halt in front of Joey, Harry and Ron. "Grab Fang!" Harry shouted, diving into the front seat. Joey dived into the back and Tobias shot up into the starlit sky, beyond capture as Ron threw a yelping Fang into the car, on top of Joey.

The doors slammed closed and the engine roared to life on its own. They were off, hitting more spiders as they went, the car drove them through a path it obviously knew, Harry turned to Ron and Joey, "Are you both ok?" Ron nodded but Joey looked green again, the same colour he'd been when they'd been flying in the car. After ten noisy, rocky minutes they stopped so suddenly that they were nearly thrown into the windscreen.

When they got out, Fang raced off and Joey promptly barfed behind a tree. Ron was the last to get out of the car and Harry gave it a grateful pat as it reversed into the forest and disappeared from view. Harry went back into Hagrid's hut to retrieve his Invisibility Cloak. Fang was trembling in his basket. When he got outside, he found Ron being sick in the Pumpkin patch.

"Follow the spiders! Follow the spiders!" Joey was storming.

"If he ever gets out of Azkaban, I'll kill him!" Ron was fuming too. "What exactly was the point of sending us in there?"

"We found out that Hagrid never opened the Chamber of Secrets." Harry said, as he threw the cloak over the three of them. "He was innocent." Ron snorted, but they didn't talk again until they'd reached the safety of the Gryffindor Common Room. "We have to tell Yugi and Ombre what we've found out."

"Harry, Ron…" Joey started, thinking hard, "That girl who died. What if she never left her bathroom? What if she's still there?"

Ron looked at him like he'd sprouted an extra head, but Harry twigged right away. "You don't think… not Moaning Myrtle?"


	17. The Chamber of Secrets

"All those times in the bathroom, and she was just three cubicles away." Ron said bitterly as they ate breakfast the next day, "And we could have asked her, and now… look," Ron said, concerned all of a sudden, "What's wrong with Yugi and Ombre?"

The two were just coming into the Great Hall, Yugi had tears in his eyes, Ombre was fuming. "What's wrong?" Joey asked, as Yugi sat down next to him.

"The antidote won't…won't…" Yugi started to cry.

"Someone stole the last of one of the ingredients for the antidote; it won't be ready for another three weeks." Ombre growled. "Who would be stupid enough to steal ingredients out of Snape's cupboard… oh…" Over on the Slytherin table, Bakura was looking like Christmas had come early for some reason.

"You don't think that we…" Harry asked.

"I don't know…" Ron sighed, "We don't know how much she took."

"I swear, if Bakura doesn't stop smirking at us, so help me Ra, I'll… I'll…" Ombre stormed, she stomped out of the room, grabbing a bit of toast on her way out. Twenty minutes later they heard Ombre's voice coming from upstairs, "BAKURA!" Ron and the others looked at each other as Ombre slammed the great hall doors open and the hall burst into giggles.

Ombre had gone from a tanned brown, to the Slytherin silver and green, her face had two silver stripes running down it, so her eyes were framed in silver and her hair too had changed colour, frizzing out, with the green bits trilling around and acting like the snakes they resembled, while the silver hair waved from side to side, while her normally red and gold tie, which was part of the Gryffindor uniform, had the words, "I want to be a snake." Written on it now in green and silver writing.

"I swear Tomb Robber, I'm going to rip you to shreds!"

"What happened?" Yugi asked.

"There's a spell or charm or something active in the hallway outside our Common Room. Someone," And the rage in her voice left no one in any doubt that she would have her revenge, "Set a trap there."

Bakura was laughing uncontrollably, "Ombre, if you wanted to be in our house so badly you could have just asked." Ombre roared and leapt on him.

Just as the fight between the two of them was getting interesting Neville came into the hall, looking worse then Ombre, pitiful even, but at least his hair wasn't hissing. He had diagonal stripes of silver and green which continued into his hair and made him look like a skunk.

"MISS IRONHIDE! MR MALFOY!" Snape roared, pulling the two off each other, "Finte incantum." It didn't work.

"Well it's not a charm or spell then." Joey said, wondering how he was going to get his books.

Over the next few days no one could figure out how to remove the spell, the teachers tried but while they could remove the charm from the students, it did no good because when they next went to their Common Room, they would be hit again. The Gryffindors got used to being green and silver, but it didn't do anything for their morals even if it did cheer up the rest of the school, since every student from the other houses burst into laughter at the sight of them. Finally the Weasley twins managed to counter the spell and took it apart, muttering something about potions and getting revenge.

Unfortunately with the exams only a few days away, Ombre and the others were unaware of what the revenge was until it occurred.

"OMBRE!" Bakura's voice could be heard as the whole of Slytherin house stormed into the Great Hall one breakfast time.

"What?" The Princess asked.

"Fix our Common Room now!" Bakura roared, the two of them were left inside a circle of Gryffidors and Slytherins, which encompassed most of the hall, as neither Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff were up yet.

"What is it you think I've done?"

"I know what you've done! And it has to be you because you're the only one out all these idiot Gryffindors that's clever enough." The Slytherins went and sat at their table, fuming.

Ombre turned to the Gryffindor table, "Did Bakura just sorta almost compliment me?"

"Aren't emotions shared through the link?" Joey asked, noticing the fact Ryou had walked in halfway through the argument.

"Yes, but I'm not going goo-goo eyes over you, Joey." Ombre stated, Ron snorted.

"Yeah but Kari isn't…ouch!" Joey yelped as Harry stood on his foot. Ombre glared at him.

"Don't mention the K word." Harry hissed. Joey blanched. "I wonder what's happened to the Slytherin Common Room." Harry said out loud. The Weasley twins laughed.

"We redecorated it."

Ombre laughed. "Let me guess, gold and red?" George nodded.

"And we improved the smell." Ombre lost her fight to control her laughter at that point and sat down on one of the benches.

"Is that why all the Slytherins smell of oranges?" Yugi asked, trying to keep a straight face. Fred nodded solemnly, and Yugi too lost his fight with his giggles.

"You do realise Bakura's not going to let this lie don't you?" Ron said slightly nervously.

The Tomb Robber didn't. The next day, Harry, Ron, Joey and Yugi were awoken by loud screams. Yugi sat up and froze… "H… H… Harry…" He stammered.

Harry sat up, on Yugi's bed was a large cobra.

"Leave him alone!" Harry shouted, Joey looked at the boy, Harry was speaking Parsletongue again. The snake slithered off of Yugi and over to Harry's bed. Yugi watched as Harry and the snake had a conversation. "This was Bakura's doing." He said in English to his dorm mates. "And there're more snakes everywhere in the Common Room, but apparently she's the only poisonous one."

"Trust Bakura."

"Okay, this is war!" Joey declared, Gryffindor House agreed with him. The Prank war had begun, venting the anger and fear that had been building up all year. It didn't take much to get Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw to join in after meal times became a disaster zone and it steadily got worse over the three weeks.

Prime targets were the house prefects, if you were sneaky enough, and in one day Percy was bespelled green, yellow, blue and then gold, but wasn't complaining to much since every time he spoke bubbles floated out of his mouth.

The war got very bad, very fast and the only good thing that came out of it was the gang managed to escape Lockheart when a student 'accidentally' got him covered in gooey green slime. After only a few days everyone was too scared to touch their food or walk down the corridor alone for a whole different reason then fear of being attacked by Slytherin's monster.

Three days before their first exams, Yugi, Harry, Ron, Joey and Ombre slowed down enough to the rest of the Gryffindors get ahead of them, and headed for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. However just as they were about to turn the handle…

"Potter! Muto! Weasley! Ironhide! Wheeler! What are you doing here?"

"We were… we were…" Stuttered Joey, as he tried to think of a good excuse.

"Going to see our friends," Harry put in, "Except for Yugi and Ombre, we haven't seen Hermione for ages, and we haven't been allowed to talk to Yami, Kari or Seto either."

"Yeap, we thought we'd tell them the potion is nearly ready." Added Yugi when it didn't seem like McGonagall would accept their excuse.

"And it was safer for all of us to go, then just a few on our own." Joey added.

"Of course," She said, and Harry was surprised to see tears in her eyes, "Of course I realise this has been hard on the friends of those who have been… and for you lot especially so… I quite understand. Of course you may visit your friends. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission."

The group walked away, hardly daring to believe they'd gotten away with it. Once Professor McGonagall was out of earshot Joey turned to Harry and smiled, "That," He said, "Was the best story anyone I know has ever come up with."

They had no choice and headed to the hospital wing, but Madam Pomfrey was reluctant to let anyone but Yugi and Ombre in. She did so but not before saying, "There's no point talking to a petrified person," she sighed, "They can't hear you."

They had to admit that she had a point, not even their other halves had been able to get through to Yami and Kari. "I wonder if they did see their attacker, though." Said Ron sadly as he looked around at his friends. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, we'll never know."

But Yugi wasn't listening, he was too interested in the piece of paper in Hermione's hand, he gently teased it out, it was a page from a very old library book. Yugi smoothed it out and read it, his face lit up and he passed it to Harry who showed it to the whole group.

"A Basilisk! That's what the monster is! A basilisk!" Yugi said excitedly. "That's why Harry can understand it! It's a big serpent!"

"Shush!" Joey said, but was relieved, he hadn't seen Yugi get excited since Yami had been petrified. It seemed Yugi was becoming more like himself again.

"The Basilisk kills people by looking at them, but no one's died because… because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The Basilisk burnt up the film but Colin just got petrified." Yugi was off again, but a little quieter this time. "Rebecca… must have seen it through the emeralds on her dragon, Yami and Justin saw it through Nick, they got petrified but Nick couldn't die again… and Hermione and Kari had mirrors, Kaiba must have seen it using their mirrors too."

Ron and Joey's jaws had dropped, "And Mrs Norris?" Ombre whispered eagerly.

"The water…" Harry said, thinking hard, "The flood from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, she only saw the reflection." He scanned the text in his hand; it was making more and more sense. "The crowing of the roosters is fatal to it and spiders flee before it! It all fits!"

"But how's the Basilisk getting around?" Asked Joey, "Surely someone would've seen a dirty great big snake."

Harry however pointed to the word at the bottom of the page, "Pipes…" He said, "Pipes… Guys, it's been using the plumbing. I've been hearing the voice inside the walls."

Yugi suddenly grabbed Harry's arm, The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!" He said, "What if it's in a bathroom? What if it's in…"

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom!" Joey exclaimed and got them kicked out of the hospital wing.

They headed for the staff room, "That must mean I'm not the only Parslemouth in the school. The heir's one too. That's how they've been controlling the Basilisk!"

"We have to tell the teachers!" Ombre said, "Come on, hurry up!"

They froze as McGonagall's voice echoed around the corridors. "All students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers to return to the staff room. Immediately please." Ombre sped up, the gang not far behind. They eavesdropped on the teacher's conversation as they stood outside.

It's happened," Professor McGonagall said, her voice echoing around the silent Staff Room, "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

The teachers all reacted differently but it was Snape who spoke, "How can you be sure?"

"The heir of Slytherin left another message, right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the chamber for ever." Professor Flitwick burst into tears.

"Who is it?" asked Madam Hooch.

"Ginny Weasley." Joey caught Ron as he slipped silently to the floor.

"Come on, let's go." Ombre said, forcing the others to follow her as they made their way back to the Common Room.

It was the worst day of the groups life, they were well aware of the consequences of this, Hogwarts would be closed. Yugi's mood had dropped back to the floor again, and the rest of the gang was sat there in total silence.

They sat quietly in a corner of the Gryffindor common room. Harry, Yugi, Ombre, Joey, Ron, Fred and George. Percy had sent an owl to Mr and Mrs Weasley and had then gone to hide in his dormitory.

Near Sunset Fred and George went up to their room, not able to take the pitying looks of everyone anymore.

"She knew something," Ron said, breaking the silence, "She tried to tell me but I was too busy, I was planning to prank Malfoy so I didn't listen to my sister, and know she's gone." He bit back a sob.

"Do you think…" Ron continued, "D'you think there's any chance at all she's not…you know…"

Yugi and Joey shared a glance, and Joey started; "We have to do something, we can't just sit around here waiting to be sent home."

"Lockhart's going to try to go into the chamber…" Yugi added.

"That's it then, we can go and tell Lockhart what we know, I mean if that git is going to try and save my sister he at least needs a fighting chance." Ron said jumping up.

Harry agreed and soon the four boys and a girl, were leaving the common room, no one tried to stop them.

They knocked on Lockhart's office and it opened a tiny crack. "Oh… it's you lot." He opened the door a bit wider, "I'm rather busy at the moment. If you can be quick?"

"Professor, we've got some information for you," Said Harry, taking the lead, "We think it'll help you."

"Er… well… it's not terribly…" Lockhart looked very uncomfortable. "I mean… well… all right."

He opened the door and the gang entered. Lockhart had been very busy packing; his room was almost completely stripped.

"Are you off somewhere?" Ombre asked.

"Er, well, yes," said Lockhart, "Urgent call… unavoidable… got to go…"

"What about my sister?" Cried out Ron.

"He was going to run away, wasn't you professor?" Accused Joey.

"Well look here, this was never in the job description. I was meant to teach a few classes, and that was all." Lockhart said angrily.

"But what about everything you did in your books?" Ombre asked, truly shocked.

"Books can be misleading; you shouldn't believe everything you read." Lockhart told her delicately.

"You wrote them." Shouted Yugi.

"My dear boy." Lockhart began…

"I'm not your dear anything." Yugi said losing his shortening temper, and the shadow magic flared around him.

"You have no idea of the work I put in. Tracking down those witches and wizards, asking them exactly what they did, and then using a memory charm on them so they wouldn't remember what they did. It took a lot of effort on my part."

He banged the lid of his trunk shut. "And now there only one thing left to do" Lockhart said as he pulled out his wand.

"Awfully sorry boys," and with a smile, "and girl, but I'll have to put a memory charm on you now. Can't have you babbling my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book."

Harry, Yugi and Joey all reached for their wands and yelled "Expelliarmus!"

Lockhart was blasted forcefully backwards, hitting his head on a shelf. Ron caught his wand and flung it out the window.

"Shouldn't have let Snape teach us that one." Ombre snarled, her shadow magic flaring too. "You're coming with us, that's all there is to it!" The Orb glowed and Lockheart was surrounded by purple magic. Harry wondered if Ombre was aware that the magic she was using wasn't its usual golden colour.

Ombre moved towards the door and Lockheart followed, from the look on his face he was trying to fight the magic every step of the way but failing badly. Ron looked at Harry, "I thought they could only move inanimate objects." He whispered.

"Obviously not."

"Don't worry, she's not controlling his mind, just moving him." Yugi said, "It's the Rod that controls minds."

"Oh good, I was starting to think we'd have to save the world from Ombre next." Joey said.

"You guys know I can hear you, right?"

"Shutting up." Joey replied.

They walked down to Myrtle's bathroom, Lockheart following Ombre every step of the way, she didn't free him from her magic until there was three people between Lockheart and the door.

Moaning Myrtle heard them come in, and scared Lockheart half to death by appearing right in front of him. "Oh it's you," She said when she saw Harry and the others, "What do you want this time?"

Yugi stepped forward, "To ask you… how you died." He said.

Myrtle acted like she's never been asked such a flattering question in her life or death, Yugi wasn't a hundred percent sure which. "Oooh, it was dreadful. It happened right in here. I remember it so well, I was hiding because I'd been teased because of my glasses, and I heard someone come in. They said something funny, in a different language, so I unlocked the door to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then I died!"

"How?" Harry asked.

"All I remember is seeing a pair of big, yellow eyes from somewhere over there." She pointed towards the sinks. Yugi and Harry made their way over to the sink and Lockheart made a break for it. Joey had him pinned in less then ten seconds. Ombre wheeled around and glared at Lockheart.

He stopped struggling to get free.

Immediately.

Ombre smirked and turned back around, watching Harry, Yugi and Ron doing something around the taps. The sink sank out of sight leaving a large pipe exposed, wide enough for a man to slip through.

"Nice one guys." Joey said, smiling, Yugi smiled back.

"I'm going down there." Harry said, everyone agreed with him except…

"Well, since you don't need me anymore…" Lockheart said feebly.

"You're going first." Ombre snarled savagely. She used her magic to push Lockheart into the tube, she went next, followed by Harry, Ron, Yugi and Joey brought up the rear.

"Lumos!" Harry and Yugi muttered to their wands and the tips lit up. "C'mon." They said to the others and they went, their footsteps slapping on the wet floor. "Remember," Yugi said, "Any signs of movement, close your eyes right away." But the tunnel was quiet as the grave and Yugi's mind was trying to push away images of what Ginny might look like if she was here as he helped Harry lead the way.

Joey tripped over something, "Joey! You ok?" Ron asked, Joey had blanched; he'd tripped over a giant snakeskin. Lockheart keeled over. "Get up!" Ron snarled, pointing his wand at Lockheart.

Lockheart dived on Ron and grabbed his wand. He smirked. "The adventure for your little gang ends here! I shall take a bit of this skin up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl and that you lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body. Say goodbye to your memories!" He raised Ron's wand, "Obliviate!"

The wand exploded with the force of the small bomb and the gang scattered to get out of the way as the ceiling crumbled.

"Yugi! Harry! Are you two ok?" Joey shouted through the cave-in.

Harry glanced at Yugi and he nodded, still coughing from the dust that had been stirred up. "We're fine Joey. Is Ombre, Ron and Lockheart with you? Are you ok?"

"We're fine, Lockheart's not, he got blasted by the wand. But it'll take ages to get through this mess." shouted Ron.

"Yugi, do you want to go on?" Harry said, the little guy was looking serious.

"Ginny needs us." Yugi said, Harry nodded.

"OK," Harry said to Yugi, then he turned towards the cave-in again and shouted to the others, "We're both going on, if we aren't back in an hour…"

Joey laughed, "You'll be back, Yugi'll make sure of it. See you soon, we'll start digging out this tunnel."

"How can Joey be so sure?" Harry asked as he and Yugi walked further down the tunnel, the sounds of Joey and Ombre moving rocks and Joey's cursing faded out of earshot.

"I never let my friends down." Yugi said firmly. "And you don't either."

They came upon the door. "Ready?" Yugi asked Harry, the door was covered in snakes.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Harry replied, "Open!" He hissed and the serpents parted.


	18. The Heir of Slytherin

Harry Potter and Yugi Muto stood at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber.

Harry pulled out his wand, holding it ready and Yugi followed suit. "Ready?" Harry asked Yugi as he glared into the gloom.

"I'm ready; come on Ginny is waiting for us." Yugi replied. Harry still couldn't believe his luck; he had friends who were ready to follow him into the lair of a monster without a second thought. But he didn't have time to think of that, like Yugi had said, Ginny was waiting for them.

They tried to move quietly but every footstep echoed loudly.

Soon the Chamber came into view, and between the feet of a giant statue was a shock of red hair.

"Ginny" The boys shouted, Harry in his haste dropped his wand.

"Ginny! Don't be dead! Please don't be dead!" Harry turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be…

Harry glanced at Yugi but Yugi wasn't watching him or Ginny.

"Why won't she wake up?" He asked Yugi.

"Riddle…" Yugi muttered, gesturing towards a ghostly figure and backing away from it.

Harry stared, "Tom – _Tom Riddle_?" and the figure nodded.

"She won't wake." Riddle said in a soft voice.

"What have you done Riddle?" Yugi asked, jumping to his own conclusions rather rapidly.

"She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just."

Harry was still rather confused. "Are you a ghost?" He asked uncertainly.

"A memory," said Riddle quietly. "Preserved in a diary for fifty years." He pointed towards the small book that looked liked it had simply been discarded beside the statue.

"You've got to help us, Tom," Harry said, attempting to lift Ginny. "We've got to get her out of here. There's a Basilisk… I don't know where it is, but it could be along any moment. Please, help us…"

Riddle didn't move, and Yugi hissed, "Harry!" He still had his wand out and pointed at Riddle. Harry somehow managed to hoist Ginny half off the floor and bent to pick up his discarded wand.

It was gone.

"Did you see-?" Harry began, but then looked up to see Riddle twirling Harry's wand between his fingers.

"Thanks" said Harry, holding his hand out for it.

Riddle smiled slowly, he continued to stare at the two boys.

"Harry…" Yugi whispered urgently, wishing the younger boy would get a clue.

"Listen," said Harry as he struggled with Ginny's dead weight, " _we've got to go!_ Come on Yugi. If the Basilisk comes…"

"It won't come until it is called," Riddle informed them calmly.

"Harry… don't you see? Riddle's the heir." Yugi whispered, hoping that Riddle wouldn't hear the actual words.

"What d'you mean?" he said. "Look, Tom, give me my wand, I might need it."

"You won't be needing it" he said.

" _Expelliarmus!_ " Both Yugi and Riddle shouted at the same time, but Riddle was quicker with the wand motion and Yugi's wand was neatly caught as Yugi was flung backwards, tripping over Ginny and hitting his head on the statue where he crumpled.

"Yugi!" Harry cried out.

"I've waited a long time for this, Harry Potter," said Riddle. "for a chance to see you. To speak with you… alone."

"Look," said Harry, the truth slowing dawning on him, but he resisted "I don't think you get it. We're in the _Chamber of Secrets._ We can talk later."

"We're going to talk now," said Riddle, smiling broadly as he pocketed both wands. "You know I was very disappointed when Ginny stole my diary back, I thought I had gained yours and Muto's trust by showing you my famous capture of that oaf Hagrid."

"Hagrid's my friend," Said Harry, his voice shaking slightly, "And you framed him, didn't you?"

"It was my word against Hagrid's." Riddle began but Harry nodded.

"And you couldn't resist being the hero."

Riddle snorted, "I'm surprised they accepted that Hagrid as the culprit. After all it took me years to work out the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Only Dumbledore seemed to doubt me, he believed Hagrid was innocent."

"Tom, this is silly, we don't have to be enemies, why are you acting this way? Help me get Yugi and Ginny out of here. You could redeem yourself." Harry told him; maybe he had listened to too many of Yami's stories about villains that became friendly.

Riddle put on his innocent face, "Oh, but Harry Potter, I just had to meet; face to face the boy who defeated the greatest wizard of all time. So tell me _Harry Potter_ how did you do it? How did a mere child of no great talent manage to escape with only a scar?"

"Why do you care how I escaped? Lord Voldemort was after your time." Said Harry slowly, he was still puzzled.

Riddle pulled Harry's wand from his pocket, and traced through the air three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then waved the wand once more so the letters rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

"Can you imagine Ginny's shock if she had known her dear friend Tom was actually Lord Voldemort? She poured her life and soul into my diary, confiding in me, and I oh course wrote back, being ever so comforting. Then when she had poured enough of herself into me I began to pour myself into her."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked slowly, a thought was jumping up and down in his mind, demanding to be heard, Harry suspected it was shouting _Run_ but he didn't dare, he couldn't leave Yugi and Ginny behind… maybe if he kept Riddle, talking then Yugi would come to his senses and it'll be two against one, then again they were wandless and Riddle had all the wands…

" _Dear Tom,"_ he recited, and Harry felt ill, " _I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Hallowe'en, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me… There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad… I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"_

Harry's fists clenched, the nails digging deep, he risked a small glance over to Ginny and Yugi. Was Ginny getting weaker? Yugi stirred slightly, but Harry decided he couldn't wait much longer. Ginny was getting weaker… and Riddle stronger.

"Ginny took ages to stop trusting me, but before she threw me away she told me plenty about you and your friends, but especially you Harry Potter. So tell me, how did you, a mere child defeat the greatest wizard of all time?"

"You're not," Harry said, his voice filled with hatred, thinking something along the lines of _Get him angry, too angry to think. Get him to point that he's just reacting and no longer thinking. And keep him away from Yugi and Ginny._ He made sure to move his body so he was standing between Riddle and his friends.

"Not what?" Riddle snapped.

"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," Harry said, thinking fast, "Sorry to disappoint you, and all that, but the greatest wizard in the world is Albus Dumbledore! Everyone says so! Even when you were strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore saw through you then and he still frightens you now, wherever you're hiding these days!"

The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly look. "Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of me!"

"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorted, more to scare Riddle and buy time then anything else. Riddle opened his mouth to speak but froze.

Music coming from somewhere. Riddle wheeled around to stare down the empty chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Harry's head. Harry saw Yugi's eyes open, but he signalled carefully for the small boy to stay down, luckily for them, at that exact moment a crimson bird the size of a swan appeared, piping it's weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacocks, and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle, distracting Riddle.

It flew at Harry, dropping the ragged thing at his feet, and then landed over by Yugi. "That's a Phoenix." Riddle said, staring at it, Harry breathed slightly easier when he saw Yugi was pretending to still be out cold. "And that," Said Riddle, who was now looking at the ragged thing at Harry's feet, "Is the old sorting hat." Riddle laughed, the echoes making it sound like there was ten Riddles laughing at once. "This! This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?"

Harry didn't answer, he was too busy weighing up his options, Riddle had both Harry and Yugi's wands, while on Harry's side was Yugi, the Millennium Puzzle, Fawkes and the Sorting Hat, and while Yugi's brand of magic was powerful it was also potentially dangerous and couldn't be relied upon. They had to think of something quickly though, Ginny was fading fast and if he was correct Riddle's outline was becoming clearer, more solid, if it had to be a fight between them and Riddle they had to do it sooner rather then later.

"Now, Harry, I'm going to teach you a lesson. Let's see the powers of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter, and the best weapons Dumbledore can give him."

He turned away from Harry and Yugi; towards to the giant, stone face of Slytherin, Yugi got to his feet, Harry watched, fear spreading through him quickly. Yugi didn't understand what Riddle said, but Harry did…

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four." Harry and Yugi watched as the mouth on the statue opened and something slithered out, Harry and Yugi both closed their eyes tightly, knowing exactly what was emerging. Then they heard Riddle hissing, Harry knew what he said, "Kill the black haired boy." Harry gulped; he could hear the Basilisk slithering towards them. Harry ran one way, Yugi ran the other. Harry tripped and hit the floor hard; the serpent was barely feet from him.

"Hey! Greeny! Over here!" Yugi shouted, Harry couldn't help it; he opened his eyes in surprise. The Basilisk was heading for Yugi, and Harry could see the Puzzle glow and shadows surround the Basilisk, binding it to the spot, Fawkes attacked, his golden beak vanishing from sight, and dark blood splattered the floor.

Yugi opened his eyes, he'd been using his shadow magic to sense where the Basilisk was, but Fawkes's fiery magical signature had told him the bird had dived in at where he sensed the Basilisk was. Yugi saw Fawkes had punctured the Basilisk's eyes, they could look again, "Hey, you! Over here!" Yugi shouted, buying Harry time.

Harry rushed over to the Sorting Hat, shoving it on his head quickly, _Help us! Somebody please!_

 _All right, you don't have to shout…_ Something hard hit Harry on the head; Harry pulled the hat off and pulled out the item. A gleaming silver sword had appeared; its handle glittered with rubies.

"Not that boy!" Riddle hissed, "The other one, you can still smell the difference." Yugi had to dive out of the way as Riddle fired a spell off at him and the shadow magic paralysing the Basilisk vanished. The Basilisk wheeled around and went for Harry, who plunged the sword into the roof of the serpent's mouth.

"Yes!" Yugi shouted as the Basilisk fell over, then he watched in horror as Harry slid down the wall he'd ended up backed against, "Harry!" He shouted as he rushed over, "What's wrong?" He asked, but he could see the answer, the Basilisk had gotten one of it's fangs into Harry. He pulled it out, not knowing what else to do.

"It doesn't matter that you killed the Basilisk, Harry Potter, both you and Muto will die here tonight!" He pointed Yugi's wand at its owner's chest.

"Yugi…" Harry said thickly, "The diary!"

Yugi nodded and drove the fang into the diary, "NO!" Riddle yelled, as ink spurted out of the book. Riddle vanished and Ginny awoke. She rushed over to the two as Yugi tried to see if there was anything he could do. Fawkes landed next to them.

"Fawkes, you were brilliant! Yugi, thanks…" Harry trailed off, thick pearly tears were trickling down Fawkes's feathers and onto the spot where the fang had pierced Harry's arm.

Yugi watched in shock as the wound vanished, healing in front of him, "Of course…" He murmured, remembering something his Grandpa had told him, "Phoenix tears, they have healing powers!" He helped Harry to his feet, and Ginny started to cry.

"Harry, Yugi, I'm sorry… It was me, but I… I s…swear I d…didn't mean to… R…Riddle made me, he t…took me over!" Yugi understood what she meant, "and… how did you kill that…that thing? W…where's Riddle? The last I think I r…remember is him coming out of the diary…"

"It's all right," Yugi said, holding up the diary, Ginny gasped when she saw the hole in the centre of the book, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the Basilisk. Come on let's get out of…"

"Yugi!" Joey yelled, as he, Ron, and Ombre rushed into the chamber. He spotted his friends and rushed over. "Harry! Are you both alright?"

"We're fine, thanks to Fawkes." Harry said, though he felt like he'd been hit by a truck.

"Ginny!" Ron gasped, hugging his sister, "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Ombre looked at Harry oddly, "Where'd you get the sword?"

"Ombre…" Yugi said, watching her, "What did you do to Lockheart?"

"Sent him to the Shadow Realm." Ombre said solemnly, Yugi stared at her, shocked.

"You didn't…"

"I wish…No he's lost his memories, we told him to wait for us at the rock fall." Ombre smirked.

"I never know when she's serious when she's in this mood." Joey sighed. Yugi and Harry laughed as they walked out of the Chamber, Yugi realised he was still holding the diary, _Dumbledore'll wanna see this_. He thought.

Lockheart was sat on a pile of rocks, "Hello," He said to Yugi and Harry, "This is an odd sort of place, do you two live here?"

"PLEASE!" Ombre begged Yugi, "Please, please, please." Yugi shook his head firmly and Ombre pouted.

"Ombre," Harry said as they reached the pipe, "Is there any chance you could lift us up there?" Ombre stopped pleading with Yugi long enough to consider it.

"Sorry, the Orb's powerful, but not that powerful." She said, and then turned back to pleading with Yugi.

Fawkes swooped past them, and was now fluttering in front of Harry, waving his golden tail feathers. "It looks like he wants us to grab on." Ron said, "But surely Fawkes can't carry one person, let alone all six of us."

"Fawkes isn't an ordinary bird." Harry said, grabbing hold. Once everyone was holding onto to either Fawkes or someone who was holding on, Fawkes shot up the pipe and within minutes they were back in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Myrtle goggled at them, "You're alive." She said blankly to Harry.

"No need to sound so disappointed." He said grimly as he flicked blood and slime off his glasses.

"Oh, well… I'd been thinking. If you'd died, you'd have been welcome to share my toilet."

"Urgh!" Joey said, talking to Yugi in Japanese as they walked out of the bathroom and into the deserted corridor, "You know, I think Myrtle's got a crush on Harry." Joey laughed, "Hey Ginny, I think you've got competition."

Tears were still flowing down the girl's face and Yugi kicked his friend in the shin.

"Where now?" Ron asked as Joey yelped.

Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold in the corridor. They followed and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall's office. Harry knocked and pushed the door open.


	19. Dobby's Reward

For a moment there was silence as Harry, Ron, Yugi, Joey, Ombre and Lockheart stood in the doorway, covered in muck and slime and (in Harry's case) blood. Then there was a scream.

"GINNY!"

It was Mrs Weasley, who'd been sat next to the fire. She and her husband leapt to their feet and flung themselves on their daughter. Yugi however, was looking past them, to Professor McGonagall, and… Professor Dumbledore. Fawkes whooshed past Ombre, who was still sulking because Yugi hadn't let her send Lockheart to the Shadow Realm, and settled on Dumbledore's shoulder.

Yugi smiled as Harry was caught up in Mrs Weasley's embrace, but wasn't prepared for her to swoop on him next. The woman swooped on all of them, causing them all to blush. "You saved her! You all saved her! How did you do it?"

"I think we'd all like to know that." Said Professor McGonagall weakly.

Harry and Yugi looked at each other, then nodded and Harry put the sword and the Sorting Hat on the desk, while Yugi dropped the remains of Riddle's diary onto the desk alongside the two items Harry had put down. Then between them they explained everything. Harry trailed off as he talked about the fact they'd worked out that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"Very well," Professor McGonagall prompted them, as he paused, "So you found out where the entrance was… breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add… but how on earth did you all get out of there alive, boys?"

So Yugi, since Harry's voice was hoarse from all the talking, told them about Fawkes timely arrival, Harry mentioned the fact Yugi had distracted the Basilisk by attracting it towards him, and Joey gave his friend a thumbs up, Yugi blushed and continued, telling them about Harry and the sword. Yugi faltered, so far he'd managed to avoid talking about Ginny and the diary… he knew Dumbledore, who'd known about the spirits of the Millennium Items, would understand but it was now impossible to prove that Riddle had forced her to do it all.

Instinctively Harry looked at Dumbledore, having realised why Yugi had trailed off. The Headmaster smiled faintly, the firelight reflecting off his half-moon spectacles.

"What interests me most," Dumbledore said gently, "Is how Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently hiding in the forests of Albania."

Relief swept through Yugi as he picked up the diary. "It was this; Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen."

Dumbledore took the diary from Yugi and peered keenly down his nose at the soggy, burnt pages. "Brilliant, of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts have ever seen." He said, then turned to Ron's parents who were looking very confused. "Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago."

"But Ginny," said Mrs Weasley, "What's our Ginny got to do with… with… him?"

"His d… diary!" Ginny sobbed, "I've b… been writing in it, and he's b… been writing back all year…"

"Ginny!" said Mr Weasley crossly, "Haven't we taught you anything? What have I told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself, unless you can see where it keeps its brain…" Yugi wondered what Mr Weasley would have made of Yami while he'd still been a spirit inside the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi decided he didn't really want to find out. "… it was clearly full of dark magic." Mr Weasley ranted. Yugi decided he definitely didn't want to find out.

"I d… didn't know," Sobbed Ginny, "I found it inside one of the books Mum got me, I th… thought someone had just left it there and forgotten about it."

"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing straight away," Dumbledore interrupted firmly, "This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore opened the door, "Bed rest and perhaps a steaming mug of hot chocolate. I find it always helps. You'll find Madam Pomfrey is still awake; she's giving out the Mandrake potion, I dare say the Basilisk's victims will be waking up anytime."

Yugi's face lit up and Ombre smiled brightly, "Really?" Yugi asked, bouncing, "They're alright?"

"No lasting damage." Dumbledore said, smiling at Yugi's excitement. The Weasley parents led Ginny out, all three looking extremely shaken. Dumbledore turned to Professor McGonagall. "You know Minerva, I think this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to alert the kitchens?"

"Right," Professor McGonagall said, "And I'll leave you to deal with the student…" Professor McGonagall dived as a Silver dragon shot in the window, followed by a second dragon with a bundle of fur held by the neck, in it's mouth.

"Uh oh." Joey murmured as the baby dragons saw him and stopped, dropping the bundle of fur. It was a mewing Mrs Norris.

"It looks like the potion is being handed out." Ombre said happily. Professor McGonagall dashed out the door as Dumbledore turned to Ombre and Yugi.

"Princess, Mr Muto, if you'd be so kind as to return the cat to our caretaker." Dumbledore said, smiling slightly, "Then if you make your way down to the Great Hall, your other halves will join you shortly." Yugi picked up the cat, who seemed to be glad of any excuse to get away from the dragons, and he and Ombre rushed out the room.

"Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Mr Wheeler." Professor Dumbledore said, "I remember telling all three of you that you would be expelled if you broke anymore school rules." Ron opened his mouth in horror, "Which goes to show that even the best of us have to eat our words," Dumbledore continued, "All five of you will receive Special Awards for Services to the School and let me think… one hundred points apiece, Yugi and Ombre included, to Gryffindor." Joey grinned at Ron and Harry, "But why, Gilderoy, are you being so modest about your part in this little adventure?"

Harry started, he had completely forgotten about Lockheart. He turned and saw Lockheart was standing stock still, scared witless of the dragons. "Mr Wheeler, if you could return these purple eyes silver dragons to their rightful places, I believe that one of them at least belongs in Hagrid's house." Joey nodded, and the dragons followed him out.

"Professor Dumbledore," Ron said as Lockheart left the corner, "there was an accident down in the Chamber of Secrets, Professor Lockheart…"

"Am I a Professor?" Said Lockheart in mild surprise, "Goodness, I expect I was useless."

"He tried to do a memory charm and it backfired." Ron explained quietly.

"Dear me," said Dumbledore, shaking his head in amusement, "Impaled on your own sword, Gilderoy."

"Sword?" Lockheart said dimly, "Haven't got a sword. That boy has though." He pointed at Harry, "He'll lend you one."

"Mr Weasley, would you mind taking Lockheart to the hospital wing too, I would like a few more words with Harry." Dumbledore said to Ron. The boy nodded, "Afterwards feel free to join your friends in the Great Hall." Ron closed the door behind them, and Harry felt nervous.

"Sit down, Harry." Dumbledore said, Harry sat in one off the chairs by the fire, "First of all, Harry, I want to thank you." Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling, "You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber, nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you." Dumbledore stroked the phoenix, Harry grinned awkwardly as Dumbledore watched him. "And so you meet Tom Riddle. I imagine he was most interested in you…"

Something thing that had been bugging Harry tumbled out of his mouth, "Professor Dumbledore, Riddle said I'm like him, strange likenesses he said."

"Did he now? And what do you think, Harry?"

"I don't think I'm like him! I mean I'm in Gryffindor, I'm…" He fell silent remembering two things the Sorting Hat had said to him, "Professor," He started again after a moment, "the Sorting Hat said I'd… I'd have done well in Slytherin, and that there was another student in my year that also would have done well as a Slytherin, for a long time I thought the other student was the Heir of Slytherin."

"And yet yourself, who was told a similar message at your sorting, was not." Dumbledore said, Harry shook his head.

"Everyone thought I was because I can speak Parseltongue." Harry said.

"You can speak Parseltongue because Voldemort can, he accidentally transferred some of his powers to you that night, there is no guarantee that this other student, whoever he is, can do the same." Dumbledore said calmly, Harry noted the fact that Dumbledore had not said 'he or she' and that it probably meant the Headmaster knew who the other student was. "Both of you have traits that Slytherin himself prized, resourcefulness, determination, a certain disregard for rules that conflict with what needs to be done, and you have his own very rare gift of Parseltongue, and yet you were placed in Gryffindor why?"

"Because I asked not to be put in Slytherin." Harry said dejectedly.

"Exactly, as did the other student, that makes you both different from the Slytherins and makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is out choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more then our abilities." Dumbledore showed him the sword, "This is proof that you belong in Gryffindor, look."

Harry did so; a name was engraved below the hilt, _Godric Gryffindor._ "Only a true Gryffindor could pull that from the hat."

For a minute neither of them spoke, then as Dumbledore moved towards the desk Harry spoke up, "Professor…" He started, "Could you tell me who the other student is, please?"

Dumbledore pulled out a quill and a bottle of ink, "I do not think so Harry, it is not my place to say, and he will do you no harm, in fact it is far more likely he'll protect you, as he does all his other friends."

"Then he's one of my friends?" Harry asked, trying to lure more information out of Dumbledore, however the Headmaster wasn't biting.

"You seem to get on with all your year mates in Gryffindor." Dumbledore said, Harry sighed, he wasn't going to get any more hints out of the Professor, "No. What you need, Harry, is food and sleep. I recommend that you join your friends down at the feast, while I write to Azkaban, we need our game keeper back." Harry turned to go but as he reached the door, it opened so fast it nearly knocked Harry over and slammed into the wall.

Lucius Malfoy stood there, his face white as a sheet, he looked harried, and he had black lines under his eyes, had he not been sleeping well? Harry wondered with a vengeance, _Serves him right!_ Cowering beside him, wrapped in bandages, was Dobby.

"Good evening, Lucius." Dumbledore said, acting pleasant though Harry was sure that Yugi would have sensed something else from Dumbledore at this moment of time.

"So!" Lucius Malfoy said, his eyes fixed on Dumbledore's, "You've come back. The Governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts."

"Well you see, Lucius." Said Dumbledore, smiling, Harry wondered how he could be polite to such a snake-in-the-grass. "The other eleven governors contacted me today. It was like being caught in a hailstorm of owls to tell the truth. They'd heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been killed and wanted me back here at once. They seemed to think that I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me too, apparently you tried to bribe them and since they all know off your fall from wealth at the hands of a Japanese teenager, you then threatened their families to make them agree to suspend me in the first place."

Harry was glad Yami or Yugi weren't in the room, they'd probably send Mr Malfoy to the Shadow Realm for those offences. Mr Malfoy glared at Harry, who wondered what he'd done. Dumbledore explained everything to Lucius Malfoy, Harry was more interested in watching Dobby. The elf was pointing at the diary, then at Mr Malfoy and then hitting himself hard on the head.

"A clever plan," Said Dumbledore in a level voice, "Because if Harry here, and his friend Yugi hadn't discovered this book, why Ginny Weasley might have taken all the blame, after all no one would be able to prove she hadn't acted of her own free will." Mr Malfoy said nothing, his face suddenly mask like, "And imagine," Dumbledore went on, "What might have happened then, the Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-Borns and Foreign International Students. Very fortunate the diary was discovered and Riddle's memories wiped from it, who know what the consequences might have been otherwise."

"Very fortunate." Malfoy said stiffly. Dobby's antics became clear to Harry as he thought about it clearly.

"Don't you want to know how Ginny got a hold of that diary?" Harry asked Lucius Malfoy. The angry, and slightly scared, adult rounded on him.

"How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it." He snarled. Harry wondered why Mr Malfoy was scared.

"Because you gave it to her," Said Harry, "In Flourish and Blotts, when the others were arguing with your children. You slipped it inside her cauldron."

"Prove it." Mr Malfoy hissed, his white hands clenching and unclenching.

"Oh, no one will be able to do that," Said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry, "Not now that Riddle has vanished from the book. However, I would advise you not to go giving out any more of Voldemort's old school things."

Lucius wheeled around, "We're going Dobby." He snapped. He strode through the door and Dobby followed. Harry stopped for a moment, thinking hard, then he thought of an idea.

"Professor, may I return this to Mr Malfoy?"

"Certainly, and then join your friends at the feast, they'll certainly want to hear what's taken you so long." Harry grabbed the diary and dashed out of the office. Harry pulled off one of his grossly dirty socks and shoved it inside the book. Then he ran down the corridor, finally catching up with the two at the top of the stairs.

"Mr Malfoy!" Harry called, "I've got something for you." He shoved the book into Lucius Malfoy's hands.

"What the?" He shoved the book to Dobby.

"Open it." Harry mouthed, Dobby did so and looked in wonder at the sock.

"DOBBY! I said come!" Dobby didn't move.

"Master has given Dobby a sock." Dobby said, "Master has given Dobby clothes, Dobby is free." Lucius wheeled around and drew his wand, pointing it at Harry.

"You've lost me my servant boy!"

"You shall not harm Harry Potter!" Dobby shouted, and a loud bang sounded. Mr Malfoy was thrown backwards, he landed in a crumpled heap on the landing below. "You shall go now." Dobby stated fiercely.

"Potter, just tell your friend Muto, that he'll regret what he did to my son." The adult said as he turned to leave. Harry paled, that was a threat to Yugi, and not a veiled one either. Harry and Dobby talked for a little while longer, and Harry managed to extract a promise out of Dobby, that he would never try to save his life again. Then Dobby disappeared and Harry made his way to the feast to join his friends.

Harry quickly ran to his dormitory to get changed, there was no way he wanted to eat while coated in slime. When he got there, he found Yugi and Joey doing the same, and as they came down from their dorm they met Ginny and Ombre, who'd done the same too. The five made their way down to the Great Hall together.

"We're so…" Joey said as they opened the doors to the Great Hall. A huge cheer rose up, drowning out his words. He was sure somewhere in the noise he could hear the Weasley twins mutilating 'Hail the conquering heroes.'

They hadn't long sat down when the doors opened again, there in the doorway was Yami, Kari, Kaiba, Hermione and Rebecca. Yami barely got through the threshold before something collided with him, causing him to stagger backwards and end up falling backwards.

"Ouch." Yami muttered, then looked down at what had hit him. Yugi looked up at him, with tears in his eyes, tightly hugging the Pharaoh. Yami tried to get Yugi to let go. "Can't… breath… Yu… gi."

Yugi let go rapidly.

"It's Ok now, thanks to you lot from what we hear." Kari said, seconds before she was engulfed in a bear hug from Joey.

"Joey… can't… breath…" The others rushed over, and as Kari managed to get Joey to let go she turned to the others. "So, what really happened?"

As they walked over to the table, Kari looked around. Yami and Ombre were talking by the door, and after a few minutes of intense discussion they both walked over. Ombre looked confused, but sat on her hikari's left side, while Joey sat on her right. Yami wasn't certain whether Yugi's Shadow Game with Malfoy was a good or a bad thing but it defiantly had its advantages. Harry got to the part where he and Dumbledore had been talking and told the others everything. Yami was silent for a couple of minutes. Then he spoke up, "The Hat considered putting me inSlytherin." Yami said quietly enough for only the gang to hear, "But I didn't think it was important enough to mention."

Joey snorted, "You? In Slytherin? With Bakura? Not possible."

"Anyway, I didn't get put there, it's our choices not our abilities that show who we really are." Yami said, "But I swear if this gets out to Bakura or Kaiba, the person spreading it will end up in the Shadow Realm faster then Bakura on a good day."

The celebrations were loud enough as it was, but when Gryffindor was announced as the winners of the House Cup, with the group's 500 points securing it easily, the noise got louder and everyone cheered when t was announced that the exams would be cancelled and the cheering that accompanied the news Lockheart would not be returning next year included quite a few of the teachers.

Unfortunately the school year ended all too fast, though no one understood why Joey insisted in sitting in Kaiba's carriage on the train and driving him mental all the way home by getting his dragon to tap the window every time Kaiba had just settled in, causing the CEO to chase the blonde boy down the train, not that Kaiba could prove it was Joey's fault. Everyone shared their phone numbers, Harry claimed he go mental if he only had Dudley to talk to all Summer.

"Felly tone?" Ron asked Ryou quietly, the white haired boy had gotten off the train not long after they had. Ryou laughed and explained it to him as Hermione asked, "Your aunt and uncle will be proud though, won't they?"

"Proud?" Harry snorted, "Are you mad? All those times I could've died this year and didn't manage it? They'll be furious!"

"Offer still stands from last year, Harry." Yami said, about to walk through the magical barrier.

"I might just take you up on that." Harry laughed, then they rejoined the muggle world.


End file.
